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415 F.3d 202
Petrit KASNECI, Petitioner,v.Alberto GONZALES, Attorney General of the United States, Respondent.
No. 04-2657.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
Submitted July 6, 2005.
Decided July 21, 2005.
Charles Christophe and Christophe & Associates, P.C., on brief for petitioner.
William J. Schneider, Assistant United States Attorney, District of Maine, and Paula D. Silsby, United States Attorney, on brief for respondent.
Before SELYA, LYNCH and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.
LYNCH, Circuit Judge.
1
Petitioner Petrit Kasneci, a native and citizen of Albania, seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) denial of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Finding ample evidence to support the BIA's decision, we deny the petition for review.
I.
2
Kasneci entered the United States through Los Angeles International Airport on or about September 27, 2002, using a fraudulent Italian passport. On January 24, 2003, he filed an application for asylum and other relief. His essential claim, elaborated in testimony at a November 6, 2003 hearing before an Immigration Judge (IJ), was that he suffered persecution in Albania because of his involvement with that country's Democratic Party.
3
Kasneci testified that he became a member of the Democratic Party in 1994 and that he participated in party meetings and demonstrations. He said he was attacked twice—first in 1997, and again in 2001—at the family-owned gas station where he worked, in the Albanian town of Tepelene. The first time, he claimed, the attack was carried out by neighbors and townspeople he recognized as members of the ruling Socialist Party; the armed attackers called him a "Democratic Party puppy," beat him, robbed the gas station, and set fire to the station's office. After that attack, Kasneci spent several months hiding at his aunt's home in another town. He then returned to Tepelene and resumed working at the gas station, which his family had rebuilt.
4
In June 2001, Kasneci testified, the station was attacked again: seven armed men beat Kasneci and his uncle, Estref Kasneci, and again set fire to the office. Kasneci said the attackers, whom he recognized as residents of his town, did not ask for money. He testified that two attackers were dressed in military uniforms and that as the men beat him they said, "[Y]ou're not going to win. This is our victory. It's not for you. You cannot take our victory from us." Kasneci testified he suffered burns on his back as the attackers pushed him toward the flaming office.
5
After the second attack, Kasneci testified, he again went to stay with his aunt, this time for more than a year. His family again rebuilt the station but abandoned it after a few months. Kasneci eventually fled to the United States instead of living elsewhere than his hometown or joining family members who had gone to Greece.
6
Kasneci offered little in the way of documentary evidence of these attacks, and offered nothing that tied them to his political affiliations. He submitted a letter from his uncle, but the letter—though it was purportedly written in 2002—did not mention the 2001 attack and failed to state either that the 1997 attackers were Socialists or that they attacked Kasneci because he was a Democrat.
7
At the conclusion of the November 6 hearing, the IJ issued an oral decision denying Kasneci's application for asylum, withholding of removal and CAT relief. As to fear of persecution, the IJ found that Kasneci had not met his burden for two reasons.
8
First, the IJ found he was not credible on anything other than the fact that the gas station attacks occurred, and not credible regarding whether the attacks were related to his political activity or to any of the other enumerated grounds under which an applicant can claim refugee status. In support, the IJ noted, inter alia, that (1) Kasneci was unfamiliar with basic facts about the Democratic Party, including its date of formation and the fact that it had participated in a coalition with the Socialist Party; (2) the letter from Kasneci's uncle contained no information subsequent to 1997 and no details on the gas station attacks; and (3) a letter from the Democratic Party in support of Kasneci's application listed the wrong date of birth for Kasneci and said he held a party management position, even though Kasneci himself testified that he did not. The IJ also noted that Kasneci had used a fraudulent passport to enter the United States and found that that fraud tainted the rest of his testimony.
9
Second, the IJ found that notwithstanding Kasneci's lack of credibility, he still did not present a prima facie case. This second conclusion was based on two findings: (1) Kasneci's own testimony demonstrated that he could safely live elsewhere in Albania— to wit, at his aunt's house, and (2) the incidents Kasneci described did not constitute persecution and did not create a basis for a well-founded fear of future persecution.
10
As to Kasneci's other claims, the IJ held that the failure of Kasneci's asylum claim doomed his withholding claim by definition. Second, the IJ held that Kasneci had not met his CAT burden because his injuries did not meet the definition of torture and because he had not shown he was attacked by the government or with a public official's acquiescence.
11
Kasneci appealed. On November 12, 2004, the BIA affirmed in a per curiam opinion, stating that its "conclusions upon review of the record coincide with those the Immigration Judge articulated...." This petition for review followed.
II.
12
Since the BIA indicated that its conclusions paralleled those of the IJ, we review the BIA's order by examining the IJ's oral decision. See Albathani v. INS, 318 F.3d 365, 373 (1st Cir.2003) ("When the BIA does not render its own opinion ... and either defers [to] or adopts the opinion of the IJ, a Court of Appeals must then review the decision of the IJ.") (quoting Gao v. Ashcroft, 299 F.3d 266, 271 (3d Cir.2002)) (second alteration in Albathani). We review an IJ's factual findings and credibility determinations under the deferential substantial evidence standard. INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481, 112 S.Ct. 812, 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992); Akinwande v. Ashcroft, 380 F.3d 517, 522 (1st Cir.2004). The standard applies to the asylum claim as well as the withholding of removal and CAT claims. See Settenda v. Ashcroft, 377 F.3d 89, 93 (1st Cir.2004). Under the substantial evidence test, the IJ's determination must stand "unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary." 8 U.S.C. § 1252(b)(4)(B); see Rodriguez-Ramirez v. Ashcroft, 398 F.3d 120, 123 (1st Cir.2005). As to issues of credibility, we give great deference to an IJ's determinations so long as the IJ provides "specific reasons for those determinations." Akinwande, 380 F.3d at 522; see also Syed v. Ashcroft, 389 F.3d 248, 251-52 (1st Cir. 2004).
A. The Asylum Claim
13
An applicant for asylum bears the burden of establishing his eligibility by proving past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of "race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion." 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A); 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b). To meet this burden, the applicant must provide credible, persuasive, and sufficiently detailed testimony in support of his claim. Diab v. Ashcroft, 397 F.3d 35, 39-40 (1st Cir.2005); 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(a) (2005). An applicant's testimony alone, "if credible, may be sufficient to sustain the burden of proof without corroboration," 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(a), but if the applicant is found not to be entirely credible, corroborating evidence may be used to "bolster an applicant's credibility." Diab, 397 F.3d at 39-40.
14
The IJ deemed Kasneci credible only in that there were several violent assaults at his gas station. She also found that the few corroborating documents Kasneci offered "actually seem to undermine" his testimony. Kasneci argues that this was error—that the IJ should have found him credible because the inconsistencies in his testimony and documentation were minor. He also argues that the IJ erred in finding that he could safely live elsewhere in Albania, given that he remained in hiding during his stay with his aunt. Finally, he argues that because he credibly testified that the gas station attackers referenced his Democratic Party membership, the IJ erred in finding an insufficient nexus between the attacks and his political activity.
15
We need proceed no further than the question of credibility to reject Kasneci's argument. Substantial evidence supported the IJ's finding that Kasneci was not credible in linking the gas station attacks to his political beliefs: the IJ detailed specific, cogent rationales for the finding, and while Kasneci downplays the importance of each, he certainly offers no reason why we would be "compelled to conclude" that Kasneci was entirely credible. See Rodriguez-Ramirez, 398 F.3d at 123. Further, corroborating evidence does not help Kasneci here, but undercuts his claim. His documentation did not support the most crucial aspect of his claim—that he was attacked because of his politics—and substantial evidence supports that finding.
16
B. The Withholding of Removal and CAT Claims
17
"[A] claim for withholding of removal places a more stringent burden of proof on an alien than does a counterpart claim for asylum." Rodriguez-Ramirez, 398 F.3d at 123. Consequently our denial of Kasneci's asylum claim means, a fortiori, that his withholding of removal claim also fails.
18
Finally, Kasneci's CAT claim is without merit. To seek relief under the CAT, an applicant must "establish that it is more likely than not that he or she would be tortured if removed...." 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2). To fall within the ambit of CAT protection, any alleged torture must be "with the consent or acquiescence of a public official who has custody or physical control of the victim." Elien v. Ashcroft, 364 F.3d 392, 398 (1st Cir.2004); see also 8 C.F.R. § 208.18(a). We need not consider whether the injuries Kasneci suffered in the two attacks amounted to torture. Given that the IJ found no link between the attacks and the attackers' alleged political or government affiliations, substantial evidence clearly supports the finding that Kasneci did not show that the attacks were carried out by or with the acquiescence of a public official.
III.
19
Since substantial evidence supports the rejection of each of Kasneci's claims, his petition for review is denied.
| |
To design these pieces we took closer look at some of the older Lambadi pieces we've seen over the years and at the traditional designs the artisans produce today. These geometrical designs can be found on the clothing and accessories of the Lambadi tribes we work with. Created in shades of blue and tan the jewel-like tones will add a splash of color to any space.
We only made these pieces in two different colors and shapes. Perfect on their own or together as a set.
It takes a several days to complete each piece. While the design and technique are the same, each artisan has her own way of applying each stitch, making each piece unique in its own special way.
The Lambadi artisans are part of a group of around 50 women. Each woman works out of the comfort of her own home, allowing her to maintain a work-life balance. | https://arthacollections.com/products/chinta-throw-pillow-blue |
I have a basic stylistic question I would like some feedback on.
I have a table containing messages, each message has a status of
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Messages expire a set period after they were created. Right now I
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Get Current
msg = Message that is marked current in the DB.
if msg == nil
return nil
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Set message to expired in DB
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else
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GENERATION OF A NEW POLYPLOID GRAPE CULTIVAR BY USING HYBRID SEEDS INDUCED WITH COLCHICINE
In this report a new breeding strategy that combines traditional crossbreeding with chemically-induced mutation is described. In this strategy, germinated diploid hybrid grape seeds were treated with colchicine at two temperatures (25°C during day and 20°C at night). After the treated seedlings were planted in the field, they were first examined morphologically to check their ploidy, followed by chromosome counting using the tip-end slicing method to further confirm the ploidy of the meristematic cells of L1, L2, and L2 layers. The confirmation can lay a foundation for selective breeding leading to a new cultivar. This strategy can be used to select multiple breeding groups based on different genotypes which were produced through cross breeding, to cultivate new cultivars of polyploid grapes by chromosome doubling with chemical mutagenesis. This method can overcome the bottleneck of using vegetative induction of mutations in polyploid breeding: only a single genotype can be doubled at a time, and there is difficulty to form populations for selection. It can achieve the integration and innovation of a core technology for excessive expression of the biological effect of polyploidy and utilization of heterosis. It is also able to expand the breeding approach with large berry grapes, improve breeding efficiency and quality, and thus it is worth promoting this approach as a new breeding strategy. Application of this strategy has been successfully used to cultivate tetraploid Eurasian species of the early maturing grape cultivar Zaoheibao (ploidy structure type is 4-4-4). | https://www.ishs.org/ishs-article/1046_32 |
The 2,709m2 single-storey community hospital offers services including Acute Outpatient Clinics, Ante-Natal, Adult Speech and Language Therapy, Community Health Clinics, Child Health Clinics, Diagnostic, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy. The hospital has been designed to complement the landscape and its surroundings and is easily accessible for the local population.
The Hospital is environmentally friendly and built from materials derived from renewable sources. Hodgson & Hodgson carried out environmental noise surveys to facilitate in the design of the building envelope to control break-in noise and in the specification of noise control measures for internal and external plant items. The sound insulation performances of separating walls and floors were assessed to provide adequate speech privacy in acoustically sensitive areas. Reverberation was also assessed to maintain speech intelligibility. Acoustic compliance testing was also carried to ensure the building met the requirements of BREEAM. The hospital to achieved an ‘Excellent’ rating.
Hodgson & Hodgson Acoustic Consultancy is a leading multi-disciplinary acoustical consulting practice offering advice on all aspects of noise and vibration control. With over 25 years experience in the business, the company prides itself on providing clients with first rate support and cost effective design solutions.
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Hodgson & Hodgson Group Ltd, Crown Business Park, Old Dalby, | http://www.acoustic.co.uk/case-studies/fareham-community-hospital-227 |
Becky McMains didn’t wonder whether her daughter would need special education services. She knew she would. Her daughter has a neurological condition that manifests both physically and cognitively, and had been seeing numerous specialists from the day she was born.
Because the McMains family knew so much about their daughter’s abilities, she assumed that the people in charge of educating children like her daughter would know what to do. Her daughter was not the first child with special needs to enroll in San Antonio ISD.
Inexperienced Parents Let the System Drive Special Education Meetings (ARDs)
“Fundamentally there’s an assumption that they’ve got this,” McMains said.
She didn’t question much about the extensive plan the district presented at their first admission, review, dismissal meeting, or “ARD.” (In most states the ARD is called an “IEP meeting.”) The district laid out a plan, told McMains they would check back in.
It wasn’t until her daughter had a troubling behavioral outburst that McMains started questioning whether the district’s plan was being followed.
It was not. Not in the way it had been presented to her.
She began to wonder, she said, whether it was just her, or if every family in special education at her school had similar experiences.
It was not just her. Parents were going into ARDs—which involve a conference table full of school and district personnel—alone, without advocates or doctors, without anyone but themselves to notice whether something looked incorrect. Most, like her, were leaving educational plans to the professionals in the room, only to be frustrated later when their child was not making progress. When they did ask about their student’s progress, most parents reported a mix of dismissive responses–—they were told the school was doing everything it could. Some were told that the teachers were still getting to know the child. Others were told that to get more services, the family psychologist would have to get involved.
Asking questions was, in short, not a good way to get answers.
“It’s not expedient for the system to feed into the asking,” McMains said. It’s easier to let exhausted parents go on assuming that their kids are getting the free and appropriate education to which they are entitled, and that any lack of progress is wholly due to their disability.
Parents Can Learn to Understand Special Education Plans (IEPs)
Qualifying for special education services can be a long road. By the time the school is ready to present their plan for delivering those services, many parents describe feelings of both exhaustion and hopefulness.
By the time they’ve seen and heard those plans, many parents report feeling more of the former, and less of the latter.
It’s not that they think the plans won’t work. It’s that the plans are really hard to understand. McMains had grown accustomed to reading lengthy, technical descriptions of her daughter’s condition. For many parents, the special education plan is their first encounter with the slurry of boilerplate jargon and educational alphabet soup.
Special education plans are delivered to parents in what is called an individualized education plan, or an IEP. While this sounds helpful—maybe even ideal—what comes home to parents is often in the realm of 30–50 pages of educational, legal, and medical terminology, describing their children in terms that sound overwhelmingly negative and bleak.
McMains sought to arm other parents with the information they would need to change their approach as well. With her principal’s support, McMains asked Juan Hernandez, a special education advisor and advocate with the Brighton Center, to speak to parents at her school about how to prepare for an ARD, as well as how to decipher the school’s special education plan, and hold them accountable to it.
“The parent is the most powerful person in the room,” Hernandez said. But seizing that power on behalf of their students parents need to understand where and how to apply pressure.
Pressure Point #1: Become the IEP Expert
Parents have every right to push back, request revisions, or ask for more information about their student’s IEP, which should include the following, Hernandez said, whether the student’s disability affects their classroom learning, behavior, or both.
Check the Present Levels of Achievement and Functional Performance
This is the baseline assessment of the students strengths and needs. Parents should make sure that this reflects the student they know, and speak up if they feel like their child is at risk of being misunderstood based on the description (not included in image to protect privacy).
Specific academic or behavioral goals and at least one measurable, definite skill that will serve as evidence that the student is advancing toward the goal for the next year. Everything from identifying letters to raising one’s hand to speak can be included among the skills that lead to goals, such as literacy and appropriate classroom participation.
Parents should offer feedback if they feel like the goals are either unrealistic or too dumbed down, Hernandez said, helping the district find the right balance. If parents see something listed as a goal that is already happening at home, this might be a good opportunity to share insight with the ARD committee. Likewise, if something looks unrealistic, but teachers have had success achieving it at school, they might have a strategy that could help at home.
Parents Should Keep Track of the Goals and Ask About Them Regularly
Progress reports on those goals should be included with their child’s report card every nine weeks.
Accommodations and Modifications to the Child’s Classroom Instruction
Accommodations are changes in how the student receives instruction or evaluation. This can include more time on tests, stand-up breaks, a cool-down corner, someone to read tests aloud to them, and many more alterations to traditional instruction methods and the classroom environment to help a student absorb the most content possible.
Modifications Are Changes to What Is Being Taught
For instance, this allows a student to receive instruction in specific subjects at a lower grade level. Students with physical disabilities will need detailed explanations of how their school day will look different from their peers, including an “adapted physical education plan.”
The IEP will also be filled with other language specific to the child. Parents should be on the lookout for where the student is spending most of their day ( look for LRE, which stands for “least restrictive environment,” and “inclusion”) and what therapies they will be receiving at what frequency. On the topics of accommodations, modification, “least restrictive environments,” and “related services” parents often have to follow up regularly—more frequently than once per nine weeks, to make sure things are going according to plan.
Related services like speech therapy, occupational therapy, counseling, etc, are tied to state and federal funding, and parents should monitor them closely.
Pressure Point #2: Take Control of the Meeting
Parents can call an ARD anytime they want to. They are required by law to happen yearly, as the IEP is valid for one year. However, concerned parents can call a meeting at any time by contacting a member of the ARD committee. Any member, Hernandez said. He offered some tips for calling, convening, and following up on ARDs.
Use Email to Call an ARD Meeting
Veteran parents of students receiving special education always leave a paper trail. Because there are time limits on how long the district has to comply with parent requests, having the date and language used in the request is essential. If a school official attempts to handle something over the phone, advocates advise asking to handle it by email, so that a record of the district’s answer is preserved.
While parents can call ARDs whenever, Hernandez did remind parents that IEPs take time to prepare and that getting all of those people in one room can be a scheduling nightmare. He recommended giving the district a reasonable amount of time before the desired date of the ARD. Asking for something within one to two weeks might not yield much useful information.
Prepare by Informally Reviewing the IEP
Before each ARD, parents should prepare by informally reviewing the IEP, marking questions, making sure they understand each component.
This is easier, of course, if schools provide the IEP with ample time for the parent to review. When a parent knows their ARD is coming up, they should ask to set an agreed upon deadline for the IEP to allow the time they need to look through it.
Taking it all in can be daunting, says Anne Childers, a California SPED mom, data coach, and writer, and sometimes districts don’t send the IEPs until the day before parents are expected to sign off on them.
That needs to change, Childers said in a seminar at the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning Summit in 2019, “If you really considered me a stakeholder in this, you wouldn’t send me a 50 page report the night before we’re going to meet.”
Anyone can answer questions or look over the document with parents, including members of the ARD committee, but not everyone will be comfortable with the jargon or the laws involved. The most effective preparation comes from outside advocates who have experience looking for blurry lines, gray areas, and trouble spots in IEPs. Advisors like Hernandez contract with school districts to help parents understand their IEPs, and some families hire advocates privately.
Be Prepared to Raise Issues in the ARD Meeting
Once in the ARD, be prepared to raise these issues. Changes can be made on the spot, or in subsequent meetings.
At the end of the ARD the parent will be asked, “Do you agree with these plans?”
The parent should be ready to say “yes,” Hernandez said, or to say “no” and explain why.
Pressure Point #3: Ask Your District to Consider Asset-Based Language
Left untended, IEPs lay out how much of a problem a student presents to school-as-usual. Perpetually seeing their student through this lens is demoralizing to parents who have high hopes for their child’s future, and paralyzing to those who fear the worst.
This might seem like a minor thing at first, but ARDs and IEPs will be more effective if everyone uses “can” words instead of “can’t” words.
The IEP “should include strengths,” Hernandez said.
This may seem like fluff, but some ARDs last for hours, and if parents leave feeling demoralized, they aren’t going to be eager to call the next ARD. Some feel like the child being described is unfamiliar to them—a problem, a liability, or a failure. This is especially true for students whose differences affect their behavior. Parents lose hope after years of hearing, essentially, that they have a bad kid.
Because special education services are governed by the Individuals with Disabilities Act, a federal law, most schools are concerned with limiting liability. They want to make sure they are checking all of the legal boxes, which leads to a lot of legal language.
While he understands that the language is often auto-filled using software designed to keep schools within their legal obligations, special education expert Jason Davis would like to see more asset-based language chosen to populate the forms.
“Compliance doesn’t require deficit language,” Davis said to 25 educators in the seminar he led with Childers. They would like to see more language to explain what is working, and the strides the students are making.
Asset-based language that keeps accountability on the adults delivering the services. It presents the students as capable learners, who simply need the school to do their job.
A Parent Can Be a Special Needs Child’s Best Advocate
That’s where McMains finally found herself. When she started her journey as a special education parent, she sympathized with the excuses and dismissals as the earnest complaints of people putting in their best effort. Now, she’s prepared to be “that parent” who shows up ready to hold feet to the fire on behalf of her student, and all students, and she’s ready to raise an army of parents willing to do the same.
Charter Moms Chats
Watch Inga Cotton’s interview with Bekah McNeel on Charter Moms Chats.
About the Author
Bekah McNeel is a San Antonio-based education writer who focuses on equity, innovation, and social-emotional learning for publications such as The 74. Over the years, we have republished local education coverage from her Hall Monitor site, and last November she wrote for us a four-part series, “Punished, Not Served,” about unfair discipline for students with disabilities. | https://sachartermoms.com/iep-special-education-advocate/ |
Is the cerebellum a smith predictor?
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- Psychology, Medicine
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- 1998
This review will focus on the possibility that the cerebellum contains an internal model or models of the motor apparatus, and the necessity of such a model and the evidence, based on the ocular following response, that inverse models are found within the Cerebellar circuitry. Expand
The cerebellum and VOR/OKR learning models
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- Trends in Neurosciences
- 1992
These models provide hints toward resolving a long-standing controversy in the oculomotor literature regarding the sites of adaptive changes in the vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) and the optokinetic eye movement response (OKR), and suggest new experiments to elucidate general mechanisms of sensory motor learning. Expand
The role of the cerebellum in voluntary eye movements.
- Psychology, Medicine
- Annual review of neuroscience
- 2001
Single-unit and inactivation data are described showing that the posterior vermis and the caudal fastigial nucleus, to which it projects, provide a signal during horizontal saccades to make them fast, accurate, and consistent. Expand
A Model of the Effects of Speed, Accuracy, and Perturbation on Visually Guided Reaching
- Computer Science
- 1992
The cerebellum and VOR / OKR learning 341 models
- Trends Neurosci . | https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2-Motor-Control-%2C-Biological-and-Theoretical-3-4-Miall/0680d79d63879afc7cf7d3c2d2b8679df9de8293 |
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European Psychiatry published with a Bi-monthly frequency.
In 2021, European Psychiatry published 2195 articles.
For European Psychiatry,eISSN is 1778-3585 and pISSN is0924-9338.
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Cambridge University Press is the publisher of European Psychiatry. | https://researcher.life/amp/journal/european-psychiatry/8177 |
Marrakech typifies Morocco. Towering minarets break the skyline, colourful street performers vie for business and cavernous covered souks bustle with activity all accessed by an endless number of twisting, confusing lanes. The old medina of Marrakech is a fine place to stay, and all accommodation here is in riads, historic private homes now converted into small hotels. Often hidden along narrow alleyways, and built in traditional Moorish style, riads offer a haven of tranquillity and provide a unique glimpse into the genuine Morocco.
Marrakech is a former imperial city in Western Morocco and home to palaces, mosques and gardens. The medina is a maze of souks opening onto the bustling Djemaa el-Fna square.
Marrakech is a living library, brimming with fascinating heritage and sites of interest including the Bahia Palace, Saadian Tombs and Ben Youssef Madrasa.
If you are fancy some authentic Moroccan pampering whilst in Marrakech, visit a hammam for a Moroccan style exfoliation and mud mask.
“You may be interested in our impressions of a marvellous trip. The programme was well balanced and and gave a good overview of the interesting country. By alternating town and countryside we got a good idea of ancient and modern Morocco. | https://www.pettitts.co.uk/destinations/morocco-holidays/magical-marrakech |
A rapid single slice EPI acquisition (neck blood flow navigator) is interleaved between slices of a conventional multislice 2D BOLD EPI acquisition in a single sequence that provides information with high temporal resolution describing blood flow in the major arteries of the neck. This signal is tightly coupled to blood flow in the brain and may be used to assess and correct for physiologic noise in the BOLD signal. Navigator images are reconstructed in real-time during acquisition and it is shown that the timing of the cardiac signal derived from the navigators closely matches the timing of the photoplethysmograph. | http://archive.ismrm.org/2010/5040.html |
GGC is headed by a dedicated team of people who bring together a wealth of knowledge and experience to cover every aspect of geotechnical engineering and enable us to deliver unparalleled quality and service.
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Close collaboration is the backbone of every project we undertake. Our directors and staff work as a team together with external architects, planners and other consultants appointed by the client. Throughout the entire project, we maintain open lines of communication and foster positive relationships with everyone involved.
Safety
Occupational Health and Safety is a responsibility we take very seriously at each level. We’re committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for all of our staff, clients and contractors, and reinforce our safety message at all relevant JDSi meetings. To ensure our procedures are constantly updated and improved, we have an Occupational Health and Management System accredited to AS/NZ 4801.
Quality
We embrace innovation and engage industry-leading technology and practices to ensure that our engineering solutions are of the highest standard. We follow strict quality control measures and have attained ISO 9001:2008.
Environment
We value the sustainability of the natural and social environments, and operate with an ISO 14001 accredited Environmental Management System (EMS).
Service
The quality of our work is matched by the high level of service we provide. We aim to anticipate our clients’ needs and develop appropriate and timely engineering solutions that exceed their expectations. We offer consistent, personalised service and handle every project with the utmost attention and importance.
Resourcing
We have a proven track record of employing and retaining talented, experienced professionals, and enjoy a low staff turnover. For our clients, this means always dealing with people who are deeply involved in and knowledgeable about their project. We employ engineers, geologists and support staff who share our company values and make meaningful contributions to the work we do.
Our Affiliations
We stay abreast of issues and developments in the geotechnical community and contribute to its future through active involvement in several industry bodies.
We’re a member of Consult Australia. We also help our engineers to achieve Chartered Professional Engineer status through the Engineers Australia professional development program. | http://www.ggconsultants.com.au/about/ |
Join us at 10pm CST on November 12 as we delve into the cyclical nature of time and civilization. We will also explore the ancient teachings that showed how we are not victims of fate, but rather, creators of our own destiny. Also, we will address the problem of the archaeological dating of ancient Egyptian monuments and how human history is much, much older than contemporary science will admit.
John Anthony West is a writer, scholar and Pythagorean, born in New York City. He is the author of The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt, and consulting editor for the Traveler’s Key series. His previous book, Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt is an exhaustive study of the revolutionary Egyptological work of the French mathematician and Orientalist, the late R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz.
In The Case for Astrology, John Anthony West presents compelling new evidence that proves the astrological premise: that correlations exist between events in the sky and on earth, and that correspondences exist between the human personality and the positions of the planets at birth. Mr. West has published a novel and many short stories; his plays have been produced on stage, television and radio, and he writes articles, essays and criticism for The New York Times Book Review, Conde Nast’s Traveler and other general interest and specialized newspapers and magazines in America and abroad. He won an EMMY Award for his 1993 NBC Special Documentary The Mystery of the Sphinx, hosted by Charlton Heston.
The ancient Egyptians themselves attributed their wisdom to an earlier age going back 36,000 years. West set out to test the hypothesis that the Sphinx was much older than its conventional date of 2500 BC. His findings provide the first hard evidence that an earlier age of civilization preceded the known development of civilization in the Nile valley. John Anthony West is today the leading authority and proponent of the ‘Symbolist’ school of Egyptology, an alternative interpretation of ancient Egyptian culture advanced by the French scholar and philosopher, R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1891-1962). In the Symbolist view, Egyptian architecture and art disclose a richer and more universal wisdom than conventional Egyptology has assumed.
Mr. West lectures extensively on Egypt and personally leads several in-depth study tours to Egypt every year.
(length: 3 hours, 15 minutes – commercial free)
NULL...
Chris and Sheree start off 2020 – and indeed, a whole new decade – off right, with one of our favorite guests, Auset Eyowaku, to discuss The Moon Projection Reality, Simulation Jumping, and the false dichotomy of light vs. dark within us all that ultimately divides ourselves and prevents us from achieving our true potential....
Chris and Sheree discuss: How to remove Spiritual Implants and Octopus Tentacles...
Chris and Sheree speak with Richard Allen Miller about anything and everything!...
The Final Harvest of Souls – Ascension – and Soul Traps...
The Aten, RA, The Law of One, and Comments... | https://tfrlive.com/jaw-magical-egypt/ |
Ringshall School are hosting an inspirational workshop with Beijing 2021 Winter Olympian Montell Douglas. Can you help us make it happen?
The School
Their priority at Ringshall Primary School will be to create opportunities for children to develop a range of life skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. That means learning to read, write and do all the other things set out in the curriculum to the highest possible standard. But it also means supporting all children to become well rounded human beings, by also developing and supporting their physical and mental health.
All staff team are all completely committed to providing a high quality and inspiring education for all children within Ringshall Primary School. They also want to create an environment where all members of the school community can develop, thrive and succeed.
Who's coming?
HOW I STARTED
I started athletics at the age of 13. It was a secondary school PE teacher that inspired me to join the athletics club and begin sprinting. I remember my first competition, and it was invigorating! After competing, I was enthralled by this passion and burn. I wanted to do better, and with every competition that passed by, I kept on feeling inspired to better myself and continue growing.
MY GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT
My greatest achievement is undoubtedly breaking the British record and qualifying as an Olympian. When I qualified as an Olympian, I felt relieved and thrilled, it was a fantastic feeling, and nothing compares! It was always a dream since I had begun competing, and it felt right when I was handed the spot!
MY GREATEST CHALLENGE
My greatest challenge came from when I had surgery on my knee. Following the surgery, I had to relearn how to walk, which put me in a difficult situation; so many of the things I could once do were stripped away from me instantly! I overcame this by focussing on what I had. I had a great support structure and a strong belief that I would beat this and go on to compete again. This helped me immensely, and it was at that point, I began to block out everything I couldn’t do at that point and focused on the things I was learning in my physio sessions one step at a time. I took each day in my stride and stopped pressuring myself as these things take time, and it did. Thankfully I overcame it, and as a result, I am stronger than ever!
MY HOBBIES
My hobbies include skating, editing videos and film! I have loved film since I was a child, and recently I got the chance to be an Amazonian warrior in Wonder Woman. It was like a dream come true! I enjoy editing my films in my free time, along with cooking! I love chicken wings, but they must be a treat! So I typically make myself bacon, scrambled eggs with avocado plantain.
MY FUTURE GOALS
In the future, I aim to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Still, I would love to start a coaching academy and train the next generation of Olympians and Winter Olympians!
Who are we?
Sports For Champions UK (CIC) in partnership with Ringshall School and the local community are running a fundraiser to help support the mental and physical health of the pupils after the national lockdowns.
Great news! Sports For Champions UK (CIC) will soon visit your school! Youth are invited to join a sponsored fitness circuit led by a Professional athlete, who will educate, enable, and empower participants with a view to inspire them as champions of tomorrow.
While we’re not all athletically inclined we strongly encourage participation, because all youth have talent and require inspiration to pursue their dreams - whatever they may be! After 10 years of success, we can promise a highly memorable event!
Sports For Champions events are held in support of schools, which keep 60% of the funds raised to spend on resources that will enrich young peoples’ education/experience. Professional athletes in need of support are the only other beneficiaries from the remaining 40%. Sports For Champions is an audited organization that is voluntarily registered with the Fundraising Regulator. You can support the initiative with assurance.
During the assembly, Sports For Champions athletes show medals and tell their story, hard work, lessons, and insights shared to capture the imagination of all and inspire healthier active lifestyles. Athletes discuss challenges on the road to success, with resilience, nutrition, diet, and dedication forming key topics. Fitness is essential for every young person’s general wellbeing in physical and mental health. It is also proven to be a strong booster of learning potential or brain power. By inspiring children as champions of tomorrow, Sports For Champions envision youth growing in all walks of life as healthy, [pro] active community-minded talents.
Alongside Team Sports For Champions, athletes invest in local communities to avail of support with training-related costs (e.g. physio/travel). Most world-class athletes train a rigorous 35hr week and struggle to find reliable work that fits their schedule. This is how the funds we raise enable athletes and your school/club to realise their potential. Many pro athletes are unsponsored, lose support, or cannot find it.
Sports For Champions offers schools the benefit of an added investment on resources/facilities, whilst helping athletes with the funds required to sustain their journey with a contribution towards training and competition fees, medical costs, equipment, and more.
Ringshall School will be receiving an inspirational visit from renowned Beijing 2021 Winter Olympian Montell Douglas on the 24th of May 2022 and we need your support!
The pupils will benefit from Physical activity, an inspirational talk including medal display and a Q&A session.
Why is this important?
Ringshall School is promoting health and wellbeing throughout the school and with the help of a visit from Montell Douglas, this will be enhanced as a school, they are also focussing on encouraging diversity and raising the aspirations of the pupils through sport.
Ringshall School will benefit from the money raised as they will be able to invest in new equipment and fund opportunities for the children in afterschool clubs.
How can you help?
We're asking all parents to help make it a memorable event for the pupils with the help of Beijing 2021 Winter Olympian Montell Douglas and to raise funds for key resources for Ringshall School.
If you are a local business or a friend of the school and would like to contribute to help us get to our target then please do make a donation and share our project as far as you can. | https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/ringshall |
DO NEED BASED MOTIVATION PRACTICES MAKE HAPPY EMPLOYEES? INTEGRATING THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF HAPPINESS WITH EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
Wickramasinghe, C.N.
;
Ahmad, N.
;
Rashid, S.
;
Emby, Z.
URI:
http://www.kln.ac.lk/fcms/ICBI2012/images/ICBM/dccs/hrm008.pdf
Citation:
Wickramasinghe, C.N., Ahmad, N., Rashid, S. and Emby, Z. (2010). Do Need Based Motivation Practices Make Happy Employees? Integrating the Supply Chain of Happiness with Employee Motivation, In: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Business and Information, University of Kelaniya.
Date:
2010
Abstract:
Even though the work life is one of the significant life domains that contribute to the happiness and satisfaction, it is not the only life domain that make employee happy and satisfied. Human mind is much more complex organism that has many domains that positively or negatively influence to the happiness and satisfaction of life. These life domains integrated within the individual as a chain that supply happy, unhappy, satisfying and unsatisfying feelings and emotions that create the happiness and satisfaction with life in a given time. Unhappy experience of one life domain is negatively influence to the other life domains as well. This is stimulated by the macro level socio, cultural and economic causes. Therefore, the organizational motivational practices should not necessarily focus only on work related motivation but need to think the happiness and satisfaction supply chain of an individual.
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This section describes what types of deep learning Architectures perform well out of the box on Inferentia. It provides guidance on how Neuron maps operations to Inferentia, and discuss techniques you can use to optimize your deep learning models for Inferentia.
AWS Neuron, the SDK of Inferentia, enables you to deploy a wide range of pretrained deep learning models on AWS machine learning (ML) chips. Neuron includes a deep learning compiler, a runtime and tools natively integrated into popular ML frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch and Apache MXNet (Incubating).
Model architectures that run well on Inferentia¶
Many popular models used in today’s leading AI applications run out-of-the box on Inferentia. The following models are examples of model types that perform well on Inferentia:
Language Models:
Transformers based Natural Language Processing/Understanding (NLP/NLU) such as HuggingFace Transformers BERT, distilBERT, XLM-BERT, Roberta and BioBert. To get started with NLP models you can refer to Neuron PyTorch, TensorFlow and MXNet NLP tutorials.
Generative language models like MarianMT, Pegasus and Bart.
-
Computer Vision Models
Recommender engines models that include Embeddings and MLP layers.
Model enablement guidelines¶
The following points provide guidelines for deploying a model that doesn’t fit into one of the above categories or when deploying your own custom models. We encourage you to compile and run the model on Inferentia and contact us for support, if needed.
Operator coverage¶
Neuron has wide support for operator types for popular model types. That said, with Neuron Auto partition feature it is not required that all operators are supported by Neuron to successfully deploy a model on Inferentia.
Prior to compilation, the Neuron extension in the given Framework will examine the supported operators in the model and then partition the model graph, creating subgraph(s) that contain the unsupported operators that will execute within the framework on the CPU instance, or subgraph(s) that contain the supported operators that will execute within the accelerator on Inferentia.
While many models perform very well with subgraphs running on CPU, especially if the operations map well to CPU execution, it is possible that the performance will not meet your application needs. In such cases, we encourage you to contact us for further optimization.
Variable input size¶
With Neuron, the input size shape is fixed at compile time. If your application requires multiple input sizes, we recommend using padding or bucketing techniques. Padding requires you to compile your models to the largest expected input size, and test your application performance. If performance is not within your targets, you can consider implementing a bucketing scheme. With bucketing, you compile your model to a few input size categories that represent the range of possible input sizes. With some applications, bucketing will help optimize compute utilization compared to padding, especially if small input sizes are more frequent than large input sizes. If the varying input dimension is the batch size, dynamic batching can be used in TensorFlow-Neuron and PyTorch-Neuron to do inference using larger batch size than the compiled batch size, (see Neuron Batching).
Control Flow¶
Models that contain control flow operators (see Transformers MarianMT Tutorial) may require specific handling to ensure successful compilation with Neuron.
Dynamic shapes¶
Currently it is required that all tensor shapes (dimension sizes) in the compute-graph are known at compilation time. Model compilation with shapes that cannot be determined at compile time will fail.
For additional resources see:
List of supported operators: | https://awsdocs-neuron.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/neuron-guide/models/models-inferentia.html |
It’s never been more exciting to be in the experiential marketing industry. Our clients expect the boldest, most innovative ideas that bring their brands to life and deliver on business objectives. What makes this possible is the culture of creativity that is built and fostered at GPJ. We challenge our interns to explore and expand this culture – pushing ahead of trends, contributing strategic ideas, and bringing a fresh perspective to the table.
You will become part of agency culture, and quickly learn what it’s like to work in a professional, fast-paced environment. We will respect your perspective, and encourage you to push further: to take initiative on complex deliverables, to develop problem-solving and multi-tasking skills and to collaborate with numerous departments. All this will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of all that it takes to create immersive, full campaign experiences.
It takes many diverse skill sets to build a live experience for the world’s top brands. We want to expand your understanding and skill set with mentors who are not only experts, but also educators. Throughout the internship, your program coordinator will be there to provide guidance and support throughout your experience. You will meet together weekly to review your milestones and ensure you are getting the most out of your internship experience.
Are you passionate about brands?
Do you believe in the power of experiences? | https://www.gpj.com/internship/ |
At Sunrise of Louisville, our Signature Dining Program is all about our senior care residents. We know how important the dining experience is and our Dining team works hard to ensure our residents’ satisfaction. Our entire team is responsive to any requests and feedback from our residents, and regularly updates them on the nutritional benefits of the food we serve.
Our monthly food forum involves residents in the menu planning and preparation – we love learning what is working and what can be improved upon. Some of our most popular dishes include our quiche, soups, cookouts and any dessert we serve!
For special occasions and holidays, we make sure regional and cultural dining options are available. We also prepare special themed menus for major holidays. For example on Valentine’s Day, we prepare a beef filet and scallops, St. Patrick’s Day is corned beef, cookouts for all summer holidays and Thanksgiving dinner with roast turkey and all the trimmings. | https://www.sunriseseniorliving.com/communities/sunrise-of-louisville/dining.aspx |
277 Pa. Superior Ct. 518 (1980)
419 A.2d 1269
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania
v.
Robert LAVELLE, Appellant.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Submitted September 13, 1979.
Filed May 2, 1980.
Petition for Allowance of Appeal Denied January 6, 1981.
*520 Joseph Sklarosky, Assistant Public Defender, Wilkes-Barre, for appellant.
Chester B. Muroski, District Attorney, Wilkes-Barre, for Commonwealth, appellee.
*521 Before SPAETH, HESTER and CAVANAUGH, JJ.
CAVANAUGH, Judge:
Robert Lavelle, the defendant, appeals from judgments of sentence imposed as a result of two jury trials. In one trial, the defendant was convicted of burglary, theft, and receiving stolen property and was sentenced to three to six years' imprisonment.[1] In the other trial, he was convicted of two counts of forgery and two counts of attempt to commit theft. He was sentenced three to six years' imprisonment on each forgery count and one to two years' on each attempt to commit theft count. All the above sentences imposed were to run concurrently.
Defendant argues that the in-court identification of him by the Commonwealth's witnesses should not have been admitted into evidence and that the Commonwealth's witnesses should have been sequestered. The defendant's unopposed motion to sequester was granted in his trial for burglary, theft, and receiving stolen property. Therefore, the defendant apparently raises this issue only as to the forgery and attempt convictions. The issue of identification was not raised in post-verdict motions after the trial for burglary, theft, and receiving stolen property.[2] Therefore, it has not been preserved for appellate review. Commonwealth v. Blair, 460 Pa. 31, 33 n. 1, 331 A.2d 213, 214 n. 1 (1975). We, therefore, affirm the judgment of sentence imposed for those convictions. Nevertheless, both these issues were raised in post-verdict motions after the trial for forgery and attempt and so have been preserved for appellate review as to those convictions. We find the arguments have merit and therefore reverse the judgment of sentence imposed for the two forgery and two attempt convictions.
*522 On several days in June and July in 1977, a person who identified himself as Robert Mack visited several branches of the Susquehanna Savings Association. On various occasions he opened a savings account, deposited a check payable to him in the amount of $25,000.00, and attempted to withdraw $10,000.00, $600.00, and $800.00. At trial, the five tellers to whom Robert Mack had spoken on his visits to the bank identified the defendant as Robert Mack. These same witnesses testified either on cross-examination or in the defendant's case-in-chief that they were shown photographs taken by the bank's camera of the person who purported to be Robert Mack. These photographs were shown to the witnesses either at the district attorney's office or in the courtroom on the day of trial before the witnesses testified. One witness testified that prior to testifying she was told by a policeman that she was being shown a picture of the defendant, to observe whether his present appearance was different, and to be sure she could identify him. At the time the perpetrator of the crimes had visited the bank, he had long hair and no mustache. At the time of the trial, however, the defendant had short hair and a mustache and at trial the prosecutor admitted there was a "marked difference" between the bank photographs and the defendant's appearance at trial. (N.T. 41).
The first issue we consider is whether identification of the defendant by the tellers should have been admitted into evidence.[3]
After a suggestive pre-trial identification, a witness will not be permitted to make an in-court identification unless the Commonwealth establishes by clear and convincing evidence that the in-court identification has an independent origin in the witness' observations at the time of the *523 crime and was not induced by events occurring between the time of the crime and the in-court identification. Commonwealth v. Rogers, 472 Pa. 435, 445-446, 372 A.2d 771, 776 (1977); Commonwealth v. Davis, 264 Pa.Super. 505, 509, 400 A.2d 199, 201 (1979). In the instant case showing certain Commonwealth witnesses pictures of the perpetrator of the crime a short time before they testified was obviously a suggestive identification. Thus, the burden was on the Commonwealth to show by clear and convincing evidence that the witnesses' in-court identification had an origin independent of the suggestive identification. Id.
To determine whether an in-court identification is independent and thus reliable, we consider:
(1) the manner in which the pretrial identification was conducted; (2) the witness' prior opportunity to observe the alleged criminal act; (3) the existence of any discrepancies between the defendant's actual description and any description given by the witness before the photographic identification; (4) any previous identification by the witness of some other person; (5) any previous identification of the defendant himself; (6) failure to identify the defendant on a prior occasion; and (7) the lapse of time between the alleged act and the out-of-court identification.
Commonwealth v. Slaughter, 482 Pa. 538, 546, 394 A.2d 453, 457 (1978) citing U.S. v. Higgins, 458 F.2d 461, 465 (3d Cir. 1972); Commonwealth v. Cox, 466 Pa. 582, 588-89, 353 A.2d 844, 847 (1976) (substantially same criteria).
A review of the record discloses that with at least one witness the Commonwealth did not establish by clear and convincing evidence an independent basis for the identification of the defendant. In this instance, the Commonwealth did not show by clear and convincing evidence that the identification of the defendant by Ms. Morucci, a teller with whom defendant allegedly deposited a forged $25,000.00 check, had an independent basis. Applying the criteria in Slaughter, supra, we find the following: Ms. Morucci was shown, both at the district attorney's office and in the *524 courtroom before she testified, three photographs all of which depicted the defendant. Such a display was done in a highly suggestive manner because each picture depicted the defendant, in some pictures the defendant was allegedly in the course of committing a crime and the pictures were shown to the witness just before she testified. Moreover, the prosecutor failed to adequately establish the circumstances surrounding the witness' opportunity to observe. There was no testimony about the lighting conditions, the length of time of the transaction, or the witness' degree of attention to the defendant's appearance. On the contrary, the witness testified that she and the defendant did not engage in any conversation and that she saw the defendant only once-the day he came to the bank. There was no testimony of whether the witness had previously described the perpetrator, whether she had previously mistakenly identified anyone else as the perpetrator, or whether she had failed to identify the defendant on a prior occasion. The time lapse between the day the witness saw the defendant at the bank and the day of the suggestive identification was nearly three months. Considering these circumstances as a whole, we find that the Commonwealth has failed to establish that the identification had an independent basis. Moreover, since Ms. Morucci was the only person who testified about the defendant's deposit of the forged $25,000 check, her identification testimony was not harmless error.
Usually when the record fails to disclose whether an independent basis exists for the in-court identification, the case is remanded for a hearing to determine whether such an independent basis exists. U.S. v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 242, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1940, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); U.S. v. Gilbert, 388 U.S. 263, 272, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 1956, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967); Commonwealth v. Sexton, 485 Pa. 17, 27, 400 A.2d 1289, 1294 (1979) (Roberts, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Sexton, 246 Pa.Super. 30, 36, 369 A.2d 794, 798 (1977) rev'd on other grounds, 485 Pa. 17, 400 A.2d 1289 (1979); See Commonwealth v. Spencer, 442 Pa. 328, 332-33, *525 275 A.2d 299, 302 (1971). Thus, we could remand the case to determine whether Ms. Morucci's testimony about the defendant's forgery had an independent basis.
However, in the instant case regardless of whether an independent basis may have existed for the in-court identification, we remand for a new trial since the trial court failed to sequester the witnesses as requested by defense counsel and the in-court identification deprived the defendant of a fair trial. Commonwealth v. Fant, 480 Pa. 586, 593, 391 A.2d 1040, 1044 (1978) cert. denied Pennsylvania v. Fant, 441 U.S. 951, 99 S.Ct. 2180, 60 L.Ed.2d 1056 (1979).
In Fant, the opinion of the court, written by Justice Manderino and joined in by Justice Roberts, held that in some circumstances denial of a motion to sequester witnesses who identify the defendant as the perpetrator of the crime is an abuse of discretion which violates due process even if the identification has an independent basis. Id. We hold that the reasoning in Fant applies to the instant case and therefore grant the defendant a new trial.
In Fant, the defendant was convicted of two counts of third-degree murder. The defendant on appeal argued that he was denied due process by the trial court's failure to sequester the witnesses. In granting the new trial the court considered that: (1) no pre-trial identification procedures were employed to identify the defendant; (2) some witnesses had previously failed to identify the defendant (the witnesses who testified at the preliminary hearing did not identify the defendant as the killer); (3) the defendant was identified under highly suggestive circumstances (the first witness at trial to identify the defendant as the killer did so only after 12 other witnesses had testified that the defendant was at the scene of the crime; did so without having previously identified the defendant, and did so for the first time in the one-on-one confrontation of the courtroom knowing the defendant to be the accused); (4) the trial *526 judge and prosecutor offered no good reason for denying the sequestration motion (both merely stated that many witnesses saw the defendant at the scene of the crime); (5) many of the witnesses testified to the same "facts"; and (6) the lapse of time between the incident and the trial (in Fant it was nine months).
Unlike Fant, in the instant case, the record does not disclose: (1) whether pre-trial identification procedures were employed to identify the defendant; or (2) whether any witnesses failed to identify him. Nevertheless, the record does disclose a preliminary hearing was not held and thus the witnesses could not have identified the defendant at a preliminary hearing.
Like Fant, however, the record discloses that at trial the tellers identified the defendant under highly suggestive circumstances. The tellers identified the defendant after they had heard police officers testify that the defendant was the perpetrator and had been arrested and with the knowledge that the defendant had been photographed in the bank and had markedly changed his appearance since the time of the crime.
Like Fant, moreover, the prosecutor and trial judge offered no good reason for denying the sequestration motion. At the time the motion to sequester was made, the prosecutor argued that it should be denied since each witness' testimony was wholly unrelated to the others. Although each teller-witness testified to a different transaction, these transactions were not unrelated since the perpetrator used the same name and same passbook. The trial judge gave no reason for denying the motion. He denied the motion even though defense counsel argued that his ability to cross-examine the witnesses would be impaired and that practical considerations did not make sequestration improper. See, generally, Commonwealth v. Kravitz, 400 Pa. 198, 218, 161 A.2d 861, 870 (1960), cert. denied Kravitz v. Pennsylvania, 365 U.S. 846, 81 S.Ct. 807, 5 L.Ed.2d 811 (1961). Thus, like *527 Fant, the reasons for the denial of the motion to sequester were insufficient.
In Fant, many witnesses testified to the same "facts." Here, however, each witness testified about a different transaction. Nevertheless, sequestration was important for here the tellers' testimony came after they had heard police officer witnesses testify that the defendant had been arrested and had been photographed in the bank, and some tellers' testimony came after they had heard their fellow tellers identify the defendant.
After listening to the testimony of witnesses who previously testified that the defendant was Robert Mack, the tellers could have been influenced to testify with a firmer conviction of their recollection of the defendant's physical characteristics and of his identity as the perpetrator of the crime, and could have been less likely to admit doubt about their identification than they would have admitted if they had been sequestered. Thus, although the teller-witnesses' testimony related to different transactions, their identification of the defendant may have been influenced by the testimony of witnesses who had testified before them and this possible influence could have been avoided by sequestration.
Finally, in the instant case, the lapse of time between the criminal acts and trial was about three months. Although this is less than the nine-month time lapse in Fant, this difference does not militate against our applying the reasoning of Fant. Applying Fant, we hold that the failure to sequester the witnesses in the instant case was an abuse of discretion which requires the grant of a new trial.
Judgment of sentence for the burglary, theft, and receiving stolen property convictions is affirmed. Judgment of sentence for the two forgery counts and two attempted theft counts is reversed and the case is remanded for a new trial on those counts.
NOTES
[1] For sentencing purposes, theft and receiving stolen property merged with burglary.
[2] The only issue raised in post-verdict motions for those convictions was whether the court erred by allowing police officers to testify in their uniforms and this issue is not raised here. Moreover, in his brief here the identification argument only refers to witnesses who testified at his trial for forgery and attempt and thus does not seem to be addressed to the burglary and related convictions.
[3] Since the suggestive identification of the defendant occurred on the day of trial, the defendant had no opportunity to file a suppression motion within the prescribed time before trial. Thus, the failure to file a suppression motion does not result in a waiver since the "opportunity did not previously exist." Pa.R.Crim.P. 323(b); Commonwealth v. Hallowell, 477 Pa. 232, 238, 383 A.2d 909, 911-12 (1978).
| |
Born:
1964 Mats Wilander (tennis champion)
Died:
1978 Jomo Kenyatta (first Prime Minister of Kenya)
On This Day:
1485 Battle of Bosworth Field (Richard III defeated by Henry Tudor to end The War Of The Roses)
Have a good Wednesday, 22nd August
22nd August – On This Day In History
Born:
1964 Mats Wilander (tennis champion)
Died:
1978 Jomo Kenyatta (first Prime Minister of Kenya)
On This Day:
1485 Battle of Bosworth Field (Henry Tudor defeats King Richard III)
Have a good Tuesday, 22nd August
Please visit the above, and click out on a Google link – help me pay for the time it takes to makes these daily posts
22nd August – On This Day In History
Born:
1964 Mats Wilander (tennis star)
Died:
1978 Jomo Kenyatta (1st Premier of Kenya)
On This Day:
1642 Beginning of the civil war in England between Royalists and Parliament
Have a good Monday, 22nd August
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
22nd August – On This Day In History
Born:
1934 Norman Schwartzkopf (US General – 1st Gulf War)
Died:
1978 Jomo Kenyatta (premier of Kenya)
On This Day:
1864 The signing of the Geneva Convention
Have a good Saturday, 22nd August
The Coffee Bean in Africa
The Coffee Bean in Africa
It will come as no surprise that coffee comes from the coffee bean, which is actually the seed of the coffee plant – strictly speaking a fruit. Coffee plants can, of course, grow wild, but world demand for coffee means that it has become a popular cash crop. The seeds of the coffee plant are processed and eventually brewed into the drink that we all enjoy so much.
However, it is more complicated than that – there is a large variety of coffee plants, and hence coffee bean, out there. For the most part, coffee plants are defined by the region in which they are grown. Nations with high, cool regions tend to have the best conditions for growing coffee, and the most expensive coffees are often those grown in volcanic soils – such as parts of Hawaii.
More than 75% of coffee beans sold worldwide are variants of Arabica, while most of the remainder are variants of Robusta. Countries in Africa produce a large proportion of the world’s coffee, and this article will attempt to describe some of the better known varieties of African coffee.
Ethiopia
Sidamo: This is coffee grown in the large southern region of Ethiopia named after the Sidamo, or Sidama, people. Before 1995, Sidamo was a province, but has since been broken into smaller regions – but the whole area is still designated as Sidamo. Coffee grown in this region is sold as Yirgacheffe, named after the village of Yirga Ch/’efe.
The best of this coffee is gown on the higher slopes of the region, and is water processed. Yirgacheffe is generally considered the best type of Ethiopian coffee.
Harar: This coffee is aromatic and often is characterised by its blueberry like aroma and after taste. Harar comes in either shortberry or longberry form – longberry being physically longer than most other forms of coffee beans.
It is widely believed that Ethiopa was the country where coffee was first consumed and grown by farmers, but interestingly other, neighbouring African nations did not start cultivating coffee until the 1800’s.
Zimbabwe
Chipinge: This coffee is named after the town of Chipinga, on the mountainous slopes of the Eastern Highlands. These mountains are on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The almost perfect conditions and elevation allow the production of fine coffees, with a rich flavour and superb after taste. This coffee is often brought to market under the name of Zimbabwean Salimba, and is considered the best of the coffees grown in this country.
Political tensions have affected the production of this style of coffee, but it is a revenue source for the people, so is still available.
Uganda
Fine Robusta coffees, usually used to make instant coffee, is grown in the Mount Elgon region of Uganda, which is close to Kenya – it can often be confused with Kenyan coffees due to its taste and appearance. This coffee is known as Bugisa Coffee.
Tanzania
Also grown on the high regions of central Africa is Arusha Coffee, named after the region of Tanzania at the foot of MountMeru. Tanzania produces what is widely regarded as some of the world’s best Arabica coffees.
Kenya
Kenya is very well known for its coffee production. Most of the coffee produced in this region is mild Arabica, and exported world wide.
What makes Kenyan coffee special is the way in which it is produced – most of the coffee is grown by small, independent farmers, working in a successful co-op style. Over 70% of the coffee beans sold in Kenya come through this system. Over six million citizens of Kenya are employed directly or indirectly in the coffee industry, making it a major employer in the country, and a significant contributor to the country’s GDP.
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
So why do we love coffee?
Coffee – why is it that so many people drink so much of it? Surely coffee is one of the world’s most popular drinks. It seems that wherever you go, you can get a cup of coffee in some form or other.
Here’s some thoughts…
Many of us crawl out of bed and head for the coffee machine. Mine is set to start bubbling away just before my alarm goes off, and I love it! Staggering into the kitchen to fill up a cup of rich, strong brew. The smell, the taste, the wake up.
And grabbing another cup of coffee is the first thing that I do when I get into the office.
But is coffee just a quick blast of caffeine? Clearly not! If that was the case, wouldn’t we just take it as a tablet?
No – the truth is, we LIKE coffee. Despite its bitter taste, there is something about a good quality coffee that appeals to us. Whether you have it with milk, cream, sugar or none of the above, you still like the basic taste of the stuff.
Is it good for us? Now there’s a debate!
A May 2012 study found that coffee drinkers “who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study.” Wow! That’s some claim!
Some of the pundits out there will point to studies that show us that coffee may reduce risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. They say that it’s good for your liver, may help you fight depression, may even go some way to fending off type 2 diabetes. It may even be a temporary weight loss helper.
I don’t know the answers, and I certainly don’t presume to be a medical expert. All I know is that I like, no – NEED – my coffee. It is perhaps one of the few completely legal and readily available performance boosters. Athletes spend heaps of dosh on fancy energy boosters, while the rest of us working slobs just pour another cup of coffee. Even if it doesn’t really work, we think it does, so maybe it’s just a case of “mind over matter”.
Of course, if it’s the caffeine in coffee that gives us a boost, that raises the argument over why we bother with decaf. Or perhaps strengthens the argument that we drink coffee because we simply like it!
Does coffee make you jittery and is it responsible for those sleepless nights? There is a school of thought that would tell you no – not at all. Apparently, it is not the coffee itself, but how it’s brewed. In other words, we can drink as much as we like, with no side effects. But just a couple of badly brewed cups…
Personally, I’m not taking any chances. Coffee for me in the morning, but not after midday. However, don’t let me change your habits!
There’s a mind boggling range of coffees to choose from.
Sumatra – earthy, almost fruity, taint to it and can be an ideal choice as a dessert coffee. Grown, obviously, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Kona – rare, grown in rich volcanic soils in Hawaii. Delicious, but, because it’s rare, it’s pretty expensive.
Arabica – a medium roast and traditionally used for most standard, American coffee blends. The coffee bean of choice for South and Central America.
Kenya – similar to Arabica beans, but with a livelier, sweeter flavour. Also a faint blackberry taste.
Robusta – less flavour but much cheaper to produce than Arabica beans. So the beans that are usually found in your basic supermarket coffees. However, for those looking for their quick caffeine boost, coffee made from these beans have nearly twice the caffeine level as coffee made from Arabica beans. | https://aromaticcoffees.com/tag/kenya/ |
We interviewed Emma Quigan, community action lead for Talking Matters, an initiative from COMET Auckland designed to get adults talking with babies and children. COMET Auckland works with communities to grow rich language environments.
How have you evaluated the needs of the families you’re working with and adapted your programming to respond to those needs?
It’s a collaborative process and an ongoing conversation with whānau (families). We start with recognizing the strengths whānau have with regards to their child-rearing practices, and then we create a space where they can do more of what’s working. Our community-based coaches walk alongside whānau as they set goals and identify strategies that could help achieve them. This means that when we share talking tips, they are catered to what whānau are focused on at that time. When we work that way, we notice that whānau want to share what they’ve learned with their wider whānau.
Whānau to whānau transmission of knowledge has been a powerful tool, so we’ve adapted our programming so that parents have more opportunities to connect with each other and grow their social circles.
"Whānau to whānau transmission of knowledge has been a powerful tool, so we’ve adapted our programming so that parents have more opportunities to connect with each other and grow their social circles."
-Emma Quigan
How are parenting styles in New Zealand unique from other parts of the world?
There are probably as many similarities as there are differences, however, one thing that’s huge here is the role of whānau. When we say whānau we don’t just mean a nuclear family. Whānau is all-encompassing of aunties, uncles, grandparents etc. and can also include non-kinship ties. We notice such a difference when the whole whānau are included and involved. This means explicitly inviting them to events, and thinking about how we talk about the programme — it’s not just for mums!
Like lots of indigenous cultures, and actually many cultures around the world, we look to our tūpuna (ancestors) to guide us, and this has an impact on how we set goals. We’re thinking generations into the future, and look back generations, too. This means families are thinking about the kinds of values they want to instil in their children, and the way we talk with them is hugely important.
Finally, humour is also a big part of life in Aotearoa. Our coaches talk about things that crack us up about children, and these moments often serve as a starting point for noticing how a young baby is communicating with us.
How have you adapted the Talking Tips to fit with the culture and values of the communities you’re serving?
The Talking Tips are great as they’re based on evidence and are flexible enough to be adapted to various situations or parenting styles, so they’ve been a helpful starting point. Indigenous cultures have oral traditions and information is passed on through stories, so we try to share the tips in the context of stories or create a story to explain and illustrate the tip.
How have you incorporated Maori culture into your work with parents using LENA?
Many of the families we work with, especially Māori, are on an indigenous language reclamation journey. Colonisation has meant that many of us throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand did not grow up speaking te reo Māori (the Māori language), and did not have access to fluent speakers.
While learning the language, whānau Māori are able to use the LENA data to think about how to increase the frequency of using te reo Māori in their home, and the impact it’s had on words and turns. A lot of whānau have noticed a difference when they sing more waiata (songs) throughout their day, and this has led to them sharing waiata they know with each other. That’s one example of where we have taken a strong cultural lens in looking at the data and how LENA has assisted with language reclamation.
We ask, how can we talk about the reports in a way that’s inclusive? For example, many of the Maori families live with relatives from their extended families. So, the times of day when there are high levels of responsiveness might be because a cousin was present and talking with the baby. So we’ll ask the parents, what can we learn from her? How can we use those strategies she was using? And how can we make sure your child’s relationship with the cousin remains strong, because she’s such an important person in the child’s life?
It’s powerful the way we’ve seen communication about the importance of early talk has increased throughout kinship networks. It’s influenced families — we see quite a movement forming of people who have engaged with the materials and tell someone else. They go through the process of becoming a champion.
What advice do you have for another site on how to be culturally responsive when delivering a community program?
Work with local families, community leaders and elders as they can identify the strengths and needs in their community. The best people to be coaches are parents from that community. We’ve noticed that when specialist professionals take the role of guiding and mentoring community coaches, opportunities for growth and leadership emerge. A culturally-responsive program is a program that is created by members of the cultures who are taking part in it. | https://www.lena.org/qa-nz-emma-quigan/ |
NAGOYA, Japan — Delegates from around the world adopted early Saturday an international protocol aimed at protecting biodiversity and sharing the benefits of natural genetic resources.
Senior ministers and government officials from more than 190 countries had gathered in the central Japanese city of Nagoya to discuss how to stop environmental destruction and the loss of plant and animal species.
After stalled talks, parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity reached agreement on the adoption of a protocol for the equitable sharing of benefits derived from the use of genetic resources such as plants from which big businesses develop drugs, cosmetics and others products.
On the final day of the 12-day talks, Ryu Matsumoto, chairman of the meeting and Japan’s environment minister, presented his own proposal to try to break the deadlock after negotiators failed to reach agreement Thursday.
The adoption of the protocol on access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources was described as a “long-cherished dream” by Matsumoto.
The Convention on Biological Diversity, born out of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, along with the United Nations climate change convention, has three main objectives: to conserve biological diversity; to use biological diversity in a sustainable way; and to share the benefits of genetic resources fairly and equitably.
Developing countries had demanded not only shares of future profits from resource commercialization but also retroactive ones. A clause that included the latter was taken out of the final document.
But the draft took the view of developing countries into account when seeking the creation of a global benefit-sharing mechanism. Such countries were also urged to consider the need for immediate access to genetic resources, such as pathogens, during medical emergencies.
Without the adoption of the protocol on access and benefit sharing, termed an “anti-bio-piracy protocol,” by activists, the Nagoya conference would not be considered a success, many participants said.
Some said Japan did not want the conference to be seen as a failure because of the effort and money the government had put into the gathering.
But Matsumoto told reporters Friday morning, “This is certainly not about saving Japan’s face. It is about considering participants’ thoughts and fulfilling them.”
Friedrich Wulf, head of international biodiversity policy at Friends of the Earth Switzerland, said developed countries were also “well aware that if they cannot get the protocol, that would affect other key issues,” such as strategic plans, mapping out efforts through 2020 to preserve biodiversity.
How much marine areas are protected was another sticking point.
The European Union first demanded 20 percent of coastal and marine areas be protected by 2020, but later compromised, dropping to 15 percent while China insisted on 6 percent. The parties ended up agreeing on 10 percent.
“At the very least, the target should be 20 percent,” Wakao Hanaoka, an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Japan, said “Greenpeace has proposed that 40 percent should be protected as a long-term goal so that we could ensure the sustainability of fishing. That would also enable future generations to eat fish.”
However, Hanaoka said, one of the positive developments at the conference was the very adoption of a document on marine and coastal biodiversity.
“It gives instruction such as where marine protected areas are established, how those areas are designated, how those areas should be protected and by whom,” he said. “Marine protected areas should be set up so that we can continue to catch and eat fish.”
WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) International described the overall agreement in Nagoya as “the new 10-year biodiversity rescue plan.”
“This agreement reaffirms the fundamental need to conserve nature as the very foundation of our economy and our society,” Jim Leape, director general of WWF International, said.
“Governments have sent a strong message that protecting the health of the planet has a place in international politics and countries are ready to join forces to save life on Earth,” he continued.
“The Nagoya Protocol is an historic achievement, ensuring that the often immense value of genetic resources is more equally shared,” Leape added. | https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/10/29/countries-ok-biodiversity-protection-protocol/ |
It began with an interest in developing a physical-vocal practice that allows all the voices, actual and virtual, of bodymind to resonate and be exteriorised as such. In this performance, we incorporate the most vulnerable voices that are not yet shaped into the signifier, such as language but are materialised in uncanny sounds and combinations of words. “It’s time?” “What’s the tempo”? - Indicates the start of the performance. A performer suggests a dynamic tempo that allies the cacophony of our voices and supports the performers as they are live scoring and using defined strategies that complicate and denounce hierarchies and value systems of “staging”. The tempo is maintained across the performance reinforcing what we identify as “the spiral”, the vulnerable exchange of bodily reading of current events. We focus on the movement of the mouth as the most apparent cavity that echoes the junction of our internal and external desire. By combining physical presence with imagery we speculate of a place of allowance, resonance and sensational transmittance.
Concept: Eva Šusová | Development and performance: Angelo Custodio and Eva Šusová | Photo: LAZOO | This project is supported by the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts).
Eva Šusová and Angelo Custodio
They met in the Master of Voice, a temporary program of the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam, initiated by Lisette Smits, Paul Elliman, Marnie Slater and Snejanka Mihaylova. This research-based Fine Arts program quickly became their first dialogic event on critically exchanging knowledge regarding performative practices. In both of their cases, such practices move across various fields - classical singing, choreography, dance, visual arts and writing. Working through connecting “bodymind”, they share and nourish a queer utopian desire for thinking with embodied knowledge. With their art practice, they create forms that speculate, apply and fantasize of other social structures. Their consistent interest in contaminating physical practices with theory, and vice versa, led them to collaborate on the multidisciplinary project Tempo~orale. Eva and Angelo bring their feminist and queer/disable perspectives to dialogue while tuning in and not harmonising.
Recognized
What characteristics define whether a news-photo is successful or not?
Amsterdam based choreographer Marjolein Vogels and visual artist Coralie Vogelaar created a performance exploring the underlying compositional patterns of popular news imagery. Hereby recognizable images and compositions of protests, riots and victim scene's are analysed, deconstructed, decomposed and performed by five dancers.
Coralie Vogelaar conducted a methodological research on which images of press agencies were used the most and the least from 2010 - 2015 with the help of image recognition software.
Concept and choreography: Coralie Vogelaar and Marjolein Vogels | Dance: Emile Boer, Ashley Ho Yuhan, Lív Smáradóttir, Fons Dhossche en Iannes Brylant | Sounds: Rutger Zuydervelt
Marjolein Vogels
is a choreographer, performer and artistic director of WhyNot festival. She studied modern dance theater, specialized in performing arts at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. She works as a dancer, performer and collaborator with Nicole Beutler projects, Arno Schuitemaker, Virgillio Sieni (IT), Michael Portnoy a.o. and choreographed performances in close collaboration with Jennifer Tee, Aimee Zito Lima a.o. Her Recent pieces are created in close collaboration with Coralie Vogelaar.
Coralie Vogelaar
is an Amsterdam-based visual artist. Her work consists of systematic conducted studies revealing mechanisms on valuation within our visual culture. She finds inspiration from the computer science and works with eye-tracking, emotion and image recognition software. Her work explores the area where the computer and human meet, the communication between the two and what new ways of seeing or behaving this can result in. | https://veem.house/EN/tempo~orale-recognized |
Published in: Aboriginal History 31 (2007): 183-87. Published by Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Research School of Social Science, The Australian National University, Canberra.
Abstract
This intriguing and soft-spoken documentary brings together scholars of Indigenous history from both North America and Australia to meet with Indigenous communities and their locally-based historians in the Northern Territory. In these encounters, it becomes clear that scholarly, academic approaches to history often clash with the ways that Indigenous communities and their historians tell their histories. This is not news to most readers of Aboriginal History; however, the film goes beyond this observation. It aims to show the possibilities for dialogue and fruitful exchange, as well as productive debate, when historians trained in different traditions of knowledge production meet and discuss their common passions for history. Rather than making grand claims about cultural breakthroughs, the film is quieter and more subtle, suggesting that this is only the beginning of a long conversation that must continue over many years.
I want to discuss just two of the issues that the film raises: first, the stakes involved for Indigenous people versus academic historians in interpreting and conveying the history of colonialism, and second, the possibility of telling history in myriad ways. As many of the participants point out in the film, many Indigenous people use history to connect themselves to their land, and both land and history are crucial to creating their identities. For historians who work within their own Indigenous communities, the film suggests, the survival, healing, and recovery of their own people is their primary agenda. | https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historyfacpub/105/ |
Plans due to be unveiled to rebuild Linwood Islamic Centre as community hub in fusion of Islam and Maori culture.
Christchurch, New Zealand – An ambitious new design concept aims to reimagine the Linwood Islamic Centre, one of two mosques targeted by a gunman a year ago on March 15, in a building that would fuse Islam with New Zealand’s indigenous culture.
The design concept intends to bring together the worlds of Islam and “te ao Maori” (the Maori world), becoming a marae-mosque hybrid (a marae is a sacred place for New Zealand Maori and other Polynesian cultures).
More:
Call to prayer, nationwide moment of silence to remember Christchurch victims
Who were the victims of the Christchurch attack?
Christchurch attack survivor says he forgives gunman
The Linwood Islamic Centre was one of two sites targeted by a white supremacist gunman, who killed 51 people in the attack on the Linwood Islamic Centre and the nearby Al Noor mosque. Seven people died at the Linwood Islamic Centre, and an eighth person shortly afterwards in hospital.
A formal ceremony to mark the year that has passed since the attacks was called off amid concerns about coronavirus, but New Zealanders came to pay their respects anyway on Sunday, leaving flowers outside.
An anonymous donor from the United Arab Emirates gave $1.1m to a third party, who then bought the surrounding lots of land – a wide, unsealed carpark at the front, and also a vacant building next door, formerly a fast-food restaurant – on behalf of the Linwood Muslim community.
Under this plan, the existing mosque – a rundown building that was once a Baha’i community centre – will be torn down and a new mosque built in its place. The marae-mosque would become the central hub in a large multicultural centre.
‘Manifestation of unity’
An initial design concept is expected to be unveiled at a private gathering in the Linwood Muslim community on Sunday, with the donor also expected to pay for the construction.
Mazhar Syed Ahmed, a 48-year-old architect who has lived in Christchurch for almost seven years, was at the Linwood Islamic Centre on the day of the attack. He is now part of a small working group that is leading the integrated design.
“There are many reasons that this place should represent the New Zealand identity,” he said. “It would be a tangible manifestation of the unity found in the wake of this tragedy.”
According to Syed, Islam does not forbid a hybrid design.
“A mosque in Islam doesn’t have to be a particular shape, a particular architectural style. It should be orientated towards Mecca, and it should be clean enough to pray. That’s the only basic requirement.”
Syed shared an early artist’s impression of one design concept, in which the curve of New Zealand’s endemic silver fern is integrated into the mosque’s raised dome. The tessellations of the fern are multicoloured, intended as a tribute to the multi-ethnic diversity of the Christchurch Muslim community. The dome is surrounded by four tall minarets, each one holding a wind turbine that would harvest extra power reserves.
The koru – a coiled pattern based on the new unfurling frond of a silver fern – is a common symbol in Maori art, carving and tattooing. The symbol was often used in marae throughout New Zealand, but has also been widely reinterpreted elsewhere.
Syed said that, ideally, the design would meet the stringent criteria of the Living Building Challenge.
This means that construction would follow sustainable building practices, use locally sourced timber to ensure a low carbon footprint, and also be constructed using local labour. The building would give rather than consume, arrayed with thick solar panels, producing enough additional power to share with the surrounding neighbourhood.
However, the plan has not been without its challenges. A new consultant architect has been appointed, and the final design remains undecided, Syed said.
Respecting the Māori
Tyrone Smith, a Maori convert to Islam, has acted as a cultural adviser on the project, connecting the consultant architect with local “iwi” (Maori tribal group) and “mana whenua” (iwi or “hapu” who have traditional authority over land).
Ngai Tahu are the local iwi in Christchurch, while Ngai Tuahuriri are the hapu (Māori subtribe) with traditional authority over the land area now known as the suburb of Linwood. Ngai Tuahuriri, as the people of the land, should, therefore, be consulted before any decisions around construction are finalised.
“You should respect the people of the land: hold that conversation. The reason is to keep the flow of balance, in a holistic way.”
Smith said tikanga (Maori custom) and Islamic law both agreed on this point, and referred specifically to the concept of adab in Islam, good manners and a basic sense of humanity.
Proper consultation in these matters was an ongoing attempt to right historic injustices after many Maori were stripped of ancestral lands under the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, he explained.
While there has been some initial consultation, no formal agreement has yet been reached between an adviser for mana whenua and the consultant architect, although Smith is actively coordinating negotiations between the two parties.
The consultations ensure any Maori design elements are incorporated correctly, and the mana (intrinsic value) of the local people is enhanced through the design.
The consultant architect wishes to remain anonymous.
Imam Abdullah Lateef, the spiritual leader of the Linwood Islamic Centre, preferred not to comment about the design until after the design concept had been officially launched.
Remembrance through architecture
The Linwood Islamic Centre was first established in early 2017, operating out of a two-bedroom rental property in Linwood. The mosque moved to a community hall in Philipstown a few months later, relocating finally to its current premises on Linwood Avenue in early 2018.
The mosque was closed for eight days after the attack, reopening on March 23 with a tapu (restriction) lifting ceremony attended by the Muslim community and local iwi.
There are more than 57,000 Muslims in New Zealand, according to the 2018 census, accounting for roughly only 1 percent of the total population. Islam is estimated to be the fastest-growing religion among Maori, more than 1,000 converts in total as at the 2013 census, up from fewer than 100 just 20 years ago. But the faith is still a small minority, only 0.19 percent of the overall Maori population.
Large-scale architectural gestures still hold some power in Christchurch, a city that continues to rebuild after the 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people. The Cardboard Cathedral, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, became a symbol of the city’s recovery after it was opened in 2013.
Amid the national outpouring of grief over the mosque shootings, plans were developed for a $9.5m memorial in the form of an elaborate landscaped park and large ornamental water feature. In November, the idea was put on hold.
While the proposal had initial support from the New Zealand Federation of Islamic Associations (FIANZ), other leaders in the local Muslim community labelled the proposal “obscene”.
Mr Syed said that Islam forbade the commemoration of any event after death, and therefore a memorial was not a natural fit.
“A memorial is a dead wall. It’s a static wall. You want something that gives back, something that rebuilds the community.”
“This building,” he said, referring to the marae-mosque, “should become that icon”. | https://cottontailsonline.com/world-news/building-unity-in-new-zealand-a-year-after-christchurch-attacks/ |
Body mass index
What is Body Mass Index?
Body composition analysis is a measurement method by which we obtain information about the ratio of bones, muscles, fat and water in the human body. All of these ratios can be measured with Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) technology thanks to the Tanita measuring device.
The method is based on the difference in electrical permeability between muscle mass and fat. Resistance to weak electrical current is measured. The BIA provides information on body fat, lean body mass, body water, and much more.
Through analysis of body composition, we can monitor the balance of fat and muscle in the body. Based on the results of these measurements, you can understand in which areas you have more fat and if your diet is right for you. The goal of the diet is to achieve ideal fat weight by preserving muscle tissue. Get rid of puffiness, if any. Thanks to this measurement, the ideal ratio of fat to muscle is achieved in the correct direction.
Rules to Consider Before Measuring
- No heavy physical exertion 24 hours before measurement,
- Eliminate alcohol in 24 hours
- Fasting for at least 4 hours to measure,
- Do not drink a lot of water before the examination,
- Do not drink tea or coffee 4 hours before the measurement,
- Lack of metal objects with you,
- Lack of a pacemaker
These principles must be followed. | https://medworlddetox.com/body-mass-index/ |
Rally to Save 35 Cooper Square
Much like the endangered 135 and 206 Bowery, 35 Cooper Square is one of the last remaining federal-style row houses in area, and is under threat of demolition. In November, the latter lot was sold by Massey Knakal for $8.5 million, leaving NYU watering hole Cooper 35 Asian Pub in a state of limbo.
This image has been archived or removed.
Now you can support the preservation of this building. The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors is organizing a rally for Friday afternoon at 4:30 pm. Other participating organizations include Historic Districts Council (HDC), Lower East Side Preservation Initiative (LESPI), and Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP). Here are the deets:
Friday, 1/28
4:30 p.m.
35 Cooper Square
There will be a rally and press conference in front of 35 Cooper Square to save this wonderful Federal-style house from demolition and to push for landmark designation. It is one of the oldest houses left on the Bowery. In addition to its architectural significance, its important historical and cultural associations range from a direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant to the building’s much later habitation by Diane DiPrima, the most influential woman of the Beat Generation. This much-beloved little building has been both a significant participant and a surviving witness to New York City history for 200 years!
Under the stipulations of the Landmarks Law, it qualifies on architectural, historical and cultural criteria for designation as a NYC individual landmark. Losing this house would be a significant loss to the history of the East Village for both cultural and historical reasons.
Click here to sign an online petition to landmark the property. | https://boweryboogie.com/2011/01/rally-to-save-35-cooper-square/ |
From bench to bedside and back again in mesothelioma
On Mesothelioma Awareness Day, Dr Anca Nastase provides an insight into mesothelioma and how research advances offer new hope for improved treatment.
Mesothelioma Awareness Day represents a great opportunity to gain more information about the disease biology, risk factors or symptoms from everyone in the mesothelioma community. Raising awareness is essential as it has the potential to improve prevention and early diagnosis and can translate into better outcomes and better survival for the patients.
My aim as a scientist within the National Centre for Mesothelioma Research (NCMR) is to deepen the molecular research in mesothelioma and to advance our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the onset and progression of this disease.
Although progress has been made in the field, further understanding of the pathophysiology is still desperately needed.
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that arises and develops in the thin layer that covers the human internal organs, called mesothelium. | https://blogs.imperial.ac.uk/imperial-medicine/tag/cancer/ |
What a week, no, NIGHT in baseball. Not one but two pitching greats reached remarkable feats on Tuesday, September 13.
It began with Boston Red Sox starter Tim Wakefield, after eight failed attempts, finally was able to seal win number 200 in an 18-6 defeat over the Blue Jays. At 45 years old and a free agent after this year, fans were beginning to wonder if Wakefield would be able to complete such an accomplishment in a Red Sox uniform. However, since joining the Sox since 1994, Wakefield was more than deserving of the fan appreciation that roared from the stands. He is the seventh knuckleball pitcher in history to reach the mark.
The night became even more incredible when the greatest closer of all time, Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, reached 600 saves. Rivera, a future Hall-of-Famer, earned the save in a 3-2 win over the Seattle Mariners. Only he and Trevor Hoffman (Currently with 601 saves) have reached the feat and. Rivera made it clear that although 600 is great, 601 is his personal goal. A goal he will surely achieve soon.
Wakefield and Rivera are some of the greatest in the game today. Not once have either of their names been uttered in a steroids scandal or had a personal indignity thrown throughout the media. They really are all around “nice guys” who come in and do their job day in and day out.
Such records are phenomenal accomplishments and for both to be achieved on the same night is just another reminder of why the game is so great. I particularly revel in the fact that both men are on opposite sides of the greatest rivalry in sports today. It seems almost every year the two duel down to the wire for playoff spots. Although the Sox sit a distant 4.5 games back from the Yanks in the AL East, I hope they can hang onto the wildcard spot. Seeing these two teams match up in the playoffs never disappoints. | https://www.collegemagazine.com/rivera-wakefield-share-night-to-remember/ |
Q:
$G' = [A, B]$ if $G = AB$, where $A,B$ are abelian.
Suppose that $G = AB$, where $A$ and $B$ are abelian subgroups. Show
that $G' = [A, B]$.
Showing that $[A,B] \subseteq G'$ is simple enough, but how do I show reverse inclusion?
A:
Write $[x,y] = x^{-1} y^{-1} xy$ and $x^y = y^{-1} xy$. Then we have the identities $[x, yz] = [x,z] [x,y]^z$, $[xy,z] = [x,z]^y [y,z]$ and $[x,y]^g = [x^g, y^g]$.
For example by applying the first two identities, you can see that it is enough to show that the set $\{[a,b] : a \in A, b \in B\}$ is closed under conjugation.
Let $a \in A$ and $b \in B$. Then using the identities above, for $a' \in A$ and $b' \in B$ we have
$[a,b]^{a'} = [a, b^{a'}] = [a, a^{''} b^*] = [a, b^*]$
$[a,b]^{b'} = [a^{b'}, b] = [b^{''} a^*, b] = [a^*, b]$
where $b^{a'} = a^{''} b^*$ and $a^{b'} = b^{''} a^*$ with $a^{''}, a^* \in A$ and $b^{''}, b^* \in B$.
For a reference and more, see Satz 1 in the following article.
Itô, Noboru. Über das Produkt von zwei abelschen Gruppen. Math. Z. 62 (1955), 400–401. link
| |
The semitrailer comprises a semitrailer body, a semitrailer plate is fixedly arranged at the top end of a semitrailer body frame, a balance weight box is fixedly arranged on one side of the top end ofthe semitrailer plate, the interior of the balance weight box is fixedly connected with two lug plates through bolts, one ends of the two lug plates are welded to the two ends of a balance weight respectively, and the other ends of the two lug plates are welded to the balance weight. The low flat plate transportation semitrailer has the advantages that the two lug plates of the balancing weight are fixed in the balancing weight box through the bolts, the balancing weight can be conveniently installed, and the transportation semitrailer is convenient to transport and high in practicability. The middles of one sides of the two longitudinal beams are connected with the two ends of the first steel arches respectively, the first stand column is arranged between the first steel arches and the cross beam, the vehicle plate and the cross beam can transmit force to the longitudinal beams and the first steel arches, the cross beam is supported by the first steel arches, and the cross beam and the vehicle plate are not prone to deformation. | |
AISC 13th Edition Structural Shapes Properties Viewer - Engineers Edge. Engineering Materials Beam Deflection & Stress Calculators. Structural Shapes Properties Resources. The following webpage tool gives you access to AISC's structural steel shapes in the U.S. This tool is useful in the design process as a reference to determine the general American Wide Flange Beams - Engineering ToolBoxThe standard method for specifying the dimensions of a American Wide Flange Beam is for example W 310 x 250 x 79, which is 310 mm deep, 250 mm wide and with a weight of 79 kg/m. I-shaped cross-section beams:Britain :Universal Beams (UB) and Universal Columns (UC) Europe :IPE. HE. HL. HD and other sections. US :Wide Flange (WF) and H sections.
Conceptual design and design examples for multi-storey
Steel and composite construction has achieved over 60% market share in this sector in some countries of Europe where the benefits of long spans, speed of construction, improved quality and reduced environmental impact have been recognised. A wide range of steel technologies may be used in commercial buildings. Specific technologies are DIMENSIONS FOR HOT ROLLED STEEL BEAM, COLUMN, Indian Standard DIMENSIONS FOR HOT ROLLED STEEL BEAM, COLUMN, CHANNEL AND ANGLE SECTIONS ( Third Revision ) (Incorporating Amendment No. 1) UDC 669.14-423.2-122.4 :006.78 Medium weight beam sections MB 100 having the flange width and web thickness of 70 mm and 4.5 mm, respectively, has been modified to 50 mm flange width and 4.7 mm web HOLLOW STRUCTURAL SECTIONScorners (3) of the shape. No cold working of the sides of the shape is performed, and the shapes seam is welded by high-frequency contacts when the tube is near its nal shape and size. The welded tube (4) is cooled and then driven through a series of sizing stations which qualies the tubes nal dimensions. HSS Manufacturing Methods
INTERNATIONAL IS0 STANDARD 13920
For the purposes of this standard the definitions of prEN IS0 1101 apply- 4 General tolerance-s 4.1 Tolerances for 1 inear dimensions See table 1. Table 1:Tolerances for linear dimensions Range of nominal sizes 1 In mm. Over Over Over Over Over 2 30 120 Made-in-China - Manufacturers, Suppliers & Products in Marine Weichai 80kVA 64kw Prime 88kVA 70kw Standby Power Electric Diesel Generator Set Power Generaotr. 12V Car/Auto Genernator Diesel Alternator for BMW 0-122-468-015, Yle000040, Lra02167, Lra2167 (15) GIF. 12V 150A Alternator for Bosch Case Lester 11345 0121615011. Video. Material selection and product - Steel ConstructionA typical highway bridge using S355 steel, A1 Appleyhead Yield strengths above 460 N/mm 2 are available to EN 10025-6, and additional design requirements for these higher strength steels are contained in EN 1993-1-12.
Sections Product Range British Steel
- UK SectionsEuropean SectionsAmerican SectionsUniversal beams (UB)Serial size range:127 x 76 x 13 to 1016 x 305 x 487 Steel grades supplied:S355 (JR, J0, J2 & K2) Carbon equivalent:0.43% Download universal beams (UB) datasheet Universal columns (UC) Serial size range:152 x 152 x 23 to 356 x 406 x 634 Steel grades supplied:S355 (JR, J0, J2 & K2) Carbon equivalent:0.43% Download universal columns (UC) datasheet Universal bearing piles (UBP) Serial size range:203 x 203 x 45 to 356 x 368 x 174 Steel grades supplied:S355 (JR, J0 & J2) Structural Steel Market Size, Share & Analysis Industry >350 mm to <500 mm; Light Structural Steel Angle [L Shaped] Bearing Pile [H Shaped] Channel [C Shaped] I Beam [ I Shaped] Tee [T Shaped] Pipe; Hollow Steel Section [HSS] Square Hollow Section 25*25 mm to 40*40 mm > 40*40mm to <70*70 mm >70*70 mm to <100*100 mm >100*100 mm to <150*150 mm >150*150 mm to <200*200 mm >200*200 mm to <400*400mm
Structural Shapes Steel, Aluminum ASTM, BS, EN, ISO Sizes The following are to links to Structural Shapes Steel, Aluminum ASTM, BS, EN, ISO Sizes Tables . Should you find any errors omissions broken links, please let us know - Feedback Do you want to contribute to this section?
UK Online Metal, Aluminium & Steel Suppliers metals4USize A (27mm) Size B (34mm) Size C (42mm) Size D (48mm) Size E (60mm) Accessories & Endcaps. View all Accessories & End Caps. My Account. Helpline [email protected] 01937 534318.
TABLES FOR STEEL CONSTRUCTIONS
M. Korashy ii Sy (cm 3):Elastic modulus of section about Y-Y axis. Sy upper flange (cm 3):Elastic modulus of upper flange about Y-Y axis. t (mm):Thickness of flange, or Wall thickness. tG (mm):Thickness of gusset plate. u1, u2 (cm):Distance between outer fibers of an angle to V-V axis. Um (m 2/m\):Surface area per unit length. Ut (m 2/t):Surface area per unit weight. | http://www.pravnik-milovice.cz/AH32-plate/07a4e20a7b1914.html |
In a recent article, I wrote about five trends that will characterise 2020. These five are:
- Greater centralisation and State control by the ANC government on the actions of South Africans;
- Better investigations, charges and prosecutions by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Hawks.
- The gradual but definite erosion of government institutions’ ability to govern, manage, maintain and provide basic services;
- The ongoing infighting within the ANC and its alliance partners (and accompanying attacks on President Ramaphosa); and
- The stagnant economy (with the possibility of a downgrade lurking).
In the past week, the focus of the media and citizens has specificially been on the infighting in the ANC (no. 4 above), which was influenced and even driven by Eskom’s problems (no. 3 above). | https://fwdeklerk.org/tag/23-january-2020/ |
We work openly with clients and stakeholders to maximise the benefits of good design for all, across all our services.
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Our BIM expertise is not reserved solely for our projects and we offer BIM CONSULTANCY as a standalone service. When working with a new Client it is critical to understand your current systems and processes, future requirements and organisational objectives. From this we can define and agree a BIM strategy with you to commence your digital journey and unleash the benefits.
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We undertake BIM COORDINATION for our own projects and as a separate service. The accurate and successful coordination of all stakeholders on a construction project can be a challenge. The use of a 3D model presents an array of opportunities for improvements on quality control, but these are often missed, with visual checking taking precedence. It is the adoption of digital tools and processes that improve the ability of the project team to collaborate, which brings a great benefit to any project.
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Our master planning experience covers our full range of sectors in varying size and scale from town centre regeneration, office parks, strategic housing sites, shopping destinations, sports villages, employment and distribution parks.
Our in-house Royal Institute of Town Planners [RTPI] accredited town planner enables early identification of constraints and opportunities on our projects, working with the National Planning Policy Framework. Working directly with the project team, our Planning Consultant is able to deal quickly and concisely with Local Authorities to obtain swift decisions working efficiently through the planning process.
Planning consultancy is available as an independent service as well as in conjunction with our architectural or interior projects.
Integrating sustainability and carbon assessments within our architectural services embeds sustainability into the heart of our projects and streamlines the process of achieving the highest sustainability ratings.
Through systems thinking we understand the complexity of holistic sustainability considerations and our inhouse experts can support projects from brief through to post occupancy to ensure that client sustainability ambitions can be realised. We offer the following sustainability services: | https://aewarchitects.com/our-services/ |
Can I propose a multi-site Center for Mendelian Genomics (CMG)? If so, will each site be expected to carry out all of the activities that a Mendelian causal gene discovery pipeline generally entails? Can the sites be responsible for different activities for causal gene discoveries?
Yes, a multi-site CMG may be proposed.The RFA does not require all sites to carry out exactly the same activities. However, the applicants must demonstrate to reviewers that all sites are essential components of the proposed center, and that the sites will be well integrated to function efficiently and cost-effectively despite the physical distance and additional needs for coordination.
What should I be aware of if I intend to include a foreign component in my application?
Under this RFA, a foreign component may be funded as a contractor of the lead PI. If the foreign contractor is proposed to play a PI's role, there are two options for doing this. 1) In a Single PD/PI structure, the PD/PI needs to be in the US and the foreign contractor may be named a Co-Investigator. 2) In a multiple PD/PI structure, the Contact PD/PI needs to be in the US, and the foreign contractor may be named a PD/PI.
This RFA limits the Total Costs. Under this RFA, all components' direct and indirect costs will come out of the total award (up to $5M) that the lead PI will be awarded with.
The RFA heavily emphasizes whole exome sequencing. Can I use, for example, whole genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, or a non-sequencing genomic approach as the main causal gene discovery approach?
You may propose to use non-whole exome sequencing genomic approaches as main or complementary approaches for causal gene discovering causal genes for Mendelian conditions. Your application should provide justification as to how the proposed approach will lead to successful discovery of causal genes. The application should justify the proposed approach, for example, in terms of reasonable and credible advantages in cost and quality. The most competitive applications will be those that demonstrate the highest potential to meet the research objectives with the available funds.
Does this RFA require implementation of whole genome sequencing (WGS)?
This RFA strongly encourages implementation of WGS, WHEN APPROPRIATE for the RFA goals.However, implementation of WGS is not a requirement under this RFA.
Can I subcontract out sequence production?
You may propose to subcontract out some or most of sequence production. The capabilities of the sequence data generator should be described in the application. In addition, you will need to demonstrate to reviewers that you understand the project design, detailed technical aspects of how the sequencing platforms perform, and implications of that for data quality, data analysis, and cost. All applicants, whether performing sequencing in-house or contracting out, will also need to demonstrate to reviewers that they will be able to take advantage of evolving sequencing technologies in an optimal timeframe to meet the research objectives with the available funds.
Can a CMG focus on certain Mendelian disease category/categories for causal gene discoveries?
A CMG can focus on certain Mendelian disease categories as long as a broader range of diseases, phenotypes, and genomic features is also studied.
Will this RFA support functional assays?
Under this RFA, each funded center can spend up to 2% of the total budget for functional assays for the purpose of validating causal genes and/or meeting journal requirements for publication. NHGRI will expect the collaborators of the funded centers to be responsible for conducting most of the functional assays.
How are the current CMGs performing? What is their success rate? What is the proportion of whole genome sequencing that these centers perform?
The current CMG Program was evaluated at Future Opportunities for Genome Sequencing and Beyond: A Planning Workshop for the National Human Genome Research Institute, held in July 2014.The workshop report can be found at http://www.genome.gov/27558042/future-opportunities-for-genome-sequencing-and-beyond-a-planning-workshop-for-the-national-human-genome-research-institute/. These centers' success rates in discovering causal genes and variants for human Mendelian conditions will be reported in an upcoming publication. These centers currently largely use whole exome sequencing for causal gene discoveries; there is small scale whole genome sequencing for causal gene discoveries.
Will there be other components of the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program that the CMG should interact with?
Yes. Applicants should consider that the overall Genome Sequencing Program (GSP) will include several Centers for Common Disease Genomics (CCDG) grantees and several CMG grantees. In addition, NHGRI recently presented concepts to our national advisory council for a Coordinating Center and for Analysis Satellites. NHGRI will manage all components of the GSP together as a research consortium. We will enlist a set of outside scientific consultants to help us with the management of the program. Every grantee should be prepared to work together collaboratively on common challenges and to share information and ideas within the GSP consortium in order to increase the success of the entire program.
Questions about Sample Recruitment, Data Sharing and Informed Consent
Is it permissible to use samples that were collected without individual identifiers or for which individual identifiers no longer exist (so that it will not be possible to return results to clinicians or participants)?
Since this RFA focuses on the discovery of causal genes for Mendelian conditions and not on returning research results for patient care, appropriately consented samples without identifiers may be used.
Will NHGRI or NHLBI provide samples to the Centers for Mendelian Genomics?
NHGRI will not fund a separate sample solicitation effort to provide for the CMGs. The manner in which NHLBI may bring in samples for the CMGs will be announced separately.
Does NHGRI expect the recruited human samples to be broadly shared with the public?
Widespread sharing of samples is not expected.The recruited samples are primarily intended for the use of the funded center's causal gene discoveries.Should it become necessary to bring in additional collaborators for a project (e.g., to have enough samples to meet the needs of the study), NHGRI expects the center to negotiate with the existing and potential collaborators to share samples and/or data to accomplish the study.
Do the current CMGs have a standardized consent form? If so, could newly funded centers use the same consent forms?
The current CMGs do not have a standardized consent form that is implemented across all sites.The CMGs' joint sample solicitation group has a consent form that can be shared with future CMGs.In addition, NHGRI recently revised an online informed consent resource, including sample informed consents, available at: http://www.genome.gov/informedconsent/.
Is there an ELSI research component in this RFA?
This RFA does not include an ELSI research component.However, applicants should consider the overall ethical, legal and social implications related to sample selection, data use, and data release. In addition, it is possible that this program will raise issues over time that will necessitate consideration of ELSI issues.
For separate funding opportunities available through the NHGRI ELSI Research Program, please visit www.genome.gov/10001618/the-elsi-research-program/.
Is explicit consent required for data deposition in dbGaP?
As described in the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy (http://gds.nih.gov/03policy2.html), prospective participants should explicitly consent for genomic and phenotypic data to be used for future research purposes and to be shared broadly.For studies using data from specimens collected before the effective date of the GDS Policy (1/25/15), an assessment by an IRB, privacy board, or equivalent body is needed to ensure that data submission is not inconsistent with the informed consent provided by the research participant.NIH recognizes that in some circumstances broad sharing may not be consistent with the informed consent of some of the research participants whose data are included in the dataset.
As a rare Mendelian disease may in itself risk identification of a participant, our IRB may not approve release of genomic data to dbGaP. Is this an acceptable project for a CMG or is sharing of the genomic data an absolute requirement?
NHGRI recognizes that some samples may not be appropriately consented for public data sharing and will defer such decisions to the local IRB. If there is strong scientific justification as to why such samples should be used for causal gene discoveries, then a very small number of exceptions to data sharing expectations may be granted after careful consideration and negotiation with the Program staff.
Questions about Application Format
The Research Strategy section outlines how to apply, but it does not explicitly mention whether the application should include Specific Aims.
The application form provides for a single one-page Specific Aims section. This will appear in the application just before the Research Strategy. You can structure the Research Strategy the way you want to. One option is to include one-sentence restatements of the specific aims in the Research Strategy, so the aims serve to divide the Research Strategy into separate sections covering the individual aims. In other words, Research Strategy may be organized by aims.
Questions about Eligibility and Funding
Is an Institution allowed to apply for either or both of these two RFAs: RFA-HG-15-001 and RFA-HG-15-002?
An institution is allowed to apply for either or both of these two RFAs.
Note that one institution receiving awards under both RFAs could be considered as an issue of program balance when it comes time to make funding decisions (see RFA Review and Selection Process).
What types of applications is the RFA inviting? How will applications be reviewed? How will funding decisions be made?
This RFA seeks both new and renewal applications.All applications will be reviewed by an independent panel of outside experts and evaluated against criteria stated in the RFA. Then the applications will be subject to a second level review - including review of a proposed overall funding plan - by the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research. The funding criteria are also stated in the RFA.
What is the budget cap for each application?
The applicant may propose a budget of up to $5M per year in total cost (direct costs plus F&A).Applicants may expect that budgets will be carefully negotiated prior to making funding decisions.
Will the funds be equally divided?
There may or may not be equal division of funds. The decision will be based on review results and other factors including those listed in the RFA section entitled, Review and Selection Process.
Will this RFA fund patient recruitment and sample collection activities?
No, this RFA will not fund direct patient recruitment and sample collection activities. It will fund efforts to identify, transfer, and utilize collected human samples for Mendelian causal gene discoveries.
Can CMG funds be spent for re-consenting?
Re-consenting may be fundable under this RFA if there is strong justification.
Will this RFA fund sample collection activities?
No, this RFA will not fund sample collection activities.It will fund grantees to identify, transfer, and utilize existing human samples.
May I propose to use existing equipment for the proposed center? Will new equipment be funded?
You may propose to use existing or new equipment, or a combination of both. Equipment purchases will be funded within the overall budget of the award. Note that equipment amortization should be included in the overall cost of sequence production.
Will this RFA be renewed after the four-year funding period?
This is currently unknown.For essentially all of its larger programs, NHGRI holds a strategic planning meeting about one year before decisions are made about any renewals or new FOAs.
How much time and effort is the PI expected to commit to the proposed CMG?
The PI is required to devote at least 1.8 person months, based on a 12-month calendar (equivalent to 15% of his/her time and effort) to the proposed CMG.If multi-PI's are proposed, then each PI is expected to commit sufficient time to serve his/her proposed role.Reviewers will be asked (see Review Criteria within the RFA) to evaluate the Management Plan section of the proposal to ensure that adequate effort and organization is proposed. | https://www.genome.gov/27560436/faq-for-rfahg15002-centers-for-medelian-genomics |
Introduction {#s1}
============
Cognitive flexibility is defined as the ability to flexibly transition between at least two processes or tasks \[i.e., alternating attention between two goals ([@B1])\]. Processing speed refers to the number of correct responses an individual is able to generate during a task within a given amount of time or the speed with which different cognitive operations can be performed \[i.e., motor speed and visual scanning speed ([@B2], [@B3])\]. As a consequence of structural and functional abnormalities in the brain, both processes may be severely disturbed in schizophrenia ([@B4], [@B5]).
These processes can be measured with two corresponding neuropsychological tests---the Color Trails Test \[CTT, ([@B6])\] and the Trail Making Test \[TMT, ([@B7])\]. Introduced in the 1990s, the CTT was primarily created to meet the demand for a culture-neutral equivalent to the TMT. Even though their scores are comparable in most tested populations, CTT's lack of numbers and letters and use of colors for responses seems to place people from cultures which don't use the Latin alphabet, illiterate persons, or those experiencing language difficulties at an advantage ([@B6]). Initially, performance times in both parts of these tests were interpreted separately, with CTT 1 and TMT A considered to measure processing speed, while CTT 2 and TMT B to assess cognitive flexibility ([@B8]--[@B10]).
Although the CTT and TMT are reported to measure various neuropsychological domains, data concerning their factorial validity when applied in clinical samples is still scarce. Internal structures of CTT investigated in the normative vs. traumatic brain injury patient samples proved somewhat divergent, although both yielded four-factor solutions, reflecting the speed of perceptual tracking and sequencing ([@B6]). To our knowledge, a factorial analysis of CTT has not been conducted yet in schizophrenia patients.
To date, the CTT was used less often than the TMT to assess response time-dependent mental processes in schizophrenia patients ([@B8], [@B11]). A PubMed search results indicate differences between patients and healthy controls in terms of response times in CTT 1 and/or CTT 2 ([@B12]--[@B18]), though some studies seem to yield conflicting results ([@B19], [@B20]). Apart from these two indices, other researchers have proposed three derived scores to provide information on cognitive flexibility somewhat independent of motor and visual scanning speed \[e.g., 2-1 difference, 2/1 ratio, and (2-1)/1 proportion\]. There is, however, little research on their use in schizophrenia ([@B13], [@B16], [@B21], [@B22]).
Assessment of cognitive flexibility based on CTT or TMT performance times as a single outcome measure is bound to be limited. In turn, a more qualitative approach can offer much more useful clinical information ([@B1]), as suggested in several studies, where CTT and TMT error analysis in clinical samples, including schizophrenia, resulted in increased diagnostic specificity of cognitive testing ([@B13], [@B23]--[@B27]).
Although deficient cognitive flexibility and processing speed have been reported in schizophrenia, their association with psychopathology \[especially different symptom dimensions, not only negative symptoms, see ([@B28])\] remains unclear. What is more, there are few findings reporting links between patients' performance on the CTT and selected clinical variables ([@B19], [@B29]). In contrast, many studies suggest positive correlations between performance time in TMT part B, and negative and disorganization symptoms ([@B30]).
Considering all these findings and inconsistencies, we have formulated the main objective of this study, i.e., to examine the factor structure of CTT in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Our secondary aims were to compare different CTT performance measures in the two groups and explore their links with selected psychopathological symptoms in the patient group.
Methods {#s2}
=======
Participants {#s2_1}
------------
Sixty-seven inpatients of three psychiatric wards were diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia according to ICD-10 diagnostic criteria \[World Health Organization (WHO), ([@B31])\] by three licensed psychiatrists. Inclusion criteria were 20--35 years of age, comprehension of test procedure, and stable clinical status. Exclusion criteria were comorbid mental or neurological disorders, craniocerebral injuries, dementia, severe somatic diseases (e.g., cancer), and addiction to alcohol or other substances. All patients gave written informed consent to participate in the study. The study protocol was approved by the local bioethics committee.
Sixty-seven persons without mental or neurological disorders, matched for gender, age, and number of years of education were recruited through information spread by students of the local universities. Inclusion and exclusion criteria for healthy controls were the same as those for patients (except for clinical parameters regarding the diagnosis of schizophrenia).
Neuropsychological Assessment {#s2_2}
-----------------------------
Polish Version of CTT by Łojek and Stańczak ([@B6], [@B13]) was used to measure cognitive flexibility and processing speed. The CTT is deemed a culture-free version of the TMT and consists of two parts: (a) CTT 1 requires participants to connect a series of 25 numbered circles that are randomly printed on a sheet of paper and (b) in CTT 2 they are to connect numbered circles from 1 to 25 alternating between two colors---pink and yellow. In this study, we used time-related indices: CTT 1 time, CTT 2 time, 2-1 difference proposed by Chan ([@B19]), 2/1 ratio adopted from Lamberty ([@B32]), (2-1)/1 proportion proposed by D'Elia ([@B6]), and error-related ones: number sequence errors in CTT 1 and/or CTT 2 (when participants connected circles in a wrong order, e.g., 1-3 or 2-4), color sequence errors in CTT 2 (when participants connected circles in a wrong color sequence e.g., 1 pink-2 pink), near-misses in both parts of CTT (when participants started connecting circles in a wrong manner but did correct their work), and prompts in both parts of this test (when participants failed to connect circles for 10 sec, the researcher indicated the next move), as suggested by D'Elia et al. ([@B6]).
Clinical Assessment {#s2_3}
-------------------
The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale \[PANSS, ([@B33])\] was used to measure psychopathological symptom severity in schizophrenia patients. Following Emsley et al. ([@B34]), we distinguished five psychopathological dimensions: negative, positive, disorganized, excited, anxiety and depression. In addition, Mini-Mental State Examination \[MMSE, ([@B35])\] was used to screen for global cognitive function.
Statistical Analysis {#s2_4}
--------------------
Statistical analysis of the data was conducted using the IBM SPSS 24 Statistical package. To investigate the factor structure, 12 CTT scores (see [**Table 2**](#T2){ref-type="table"}) were submitted to principal components analysis with VARIMAX rotation. Factors with eigenvalues \> 1 (the Kaiser-Guttman criterion) were retained and factor loadings of.40 or greater were considered significant. Indices and factors (regression factor scores) of CTT were used as dependent variables. To check for differences between the groups, we used Student's *t-*test. Cohen's *d* was used to determine the magnitude of effect size measures ([@B36]). Holm's *p*-value correction for multiple comparisons was used ([@B37]). To assess the strength of the identified correlations, The Pearson *r* correlation coefficient was used. In the case of significant correlations, single stepwise linear regression procedures were conducted, in the schizophrenia group.
Results {#s3}
=======
Participant Characteristics {#s3_1}
---------------------------
Schizophrenia patient group included 31 women and 36 men, while the control group comprised 27 women and 40 men. The groups did not differ in terms of gender, age, years of education or global cognitive function (MMSE score, see [**Table 1**](#T1){ref-type="table"}).
######
Demographic, clinical, psychological characteristics, and performance in the Color Trail Test (CTT) in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.
Variable/measure Schizophrenia patients Healthy controls *t* *d*
--------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ ------------------ ----------------- ------- ------------ ------
**Demographic and psychological characteristics**
Age 28.73 4.27 28.67 4.56 0.08 --
Years of education 14.63 2.80 15.21 2.61 -1.25 --
General cognitive functioning 28.37 1.64 28.72 1.28 -1.35 --
**Clinical characteristics**
Duration of illness 5.08 4.55 min-max: 1 - 17
Psychopathological symptoms in PANSS
Positive symptoms 4.60 5.55 min-max: 0 - 25
Negative symptoms 7.64 6.27 min-max: 0 - 29
Disorganization symptoms 4.19 4.03 min-max: 0 - 14
Excited symptoms 1.60 2.75 min-max: 0 - 15
Anxiety and depression symptoms 3.66 2.84 min-max: 0 - 15
**Time-based indices**
CTT 1 time 54.10 21.90 36.03 14.47 5.64\*\*\* 0.98
CTT 2 time 112.64 46.03 67.16 23.30 7.22\*\*\* 1.26
2-1 difference 58.54 32.05 31.13 18.42 6.09\*\*\* 1.06
2/1 ratio 2.17 0.60 1.96 0.60 1.97 --
(2-1)/1 proportion 1.17 0.60 0.96 0.60 1.97 --
**Error-based indices**
CTT 1 number sequence errors 0.07 0.26 0.15 0.40 -1.28 --
CTT 1 near-misses 0.21 0.59 0.24 0.50 -0.32 --
CTT 1 prompts 0.19 0.70 0.06 0.24 1.48 --
CTT 2 number sequence errors 0.07 0.32 0.06 0.30 0.28 --
CTT 2 color sequence errors 0.33 0.59 0.12 0.37 2.46 --
CTT 2 near-misses 0.16 0.41 0.19 0.43 -0.41 --
CTT 2 prompts 0.69 1.38 0.10 0.35 3.34\*\* 0.58
**Indices based on factor structure**
Regression factor scores for Factor 1 0.44 1.19 -0.44 0.47 5.60\*\*\* 0.97
Regression factor scores for Factor 2 0.15 1.00 -0.15 0.98 1.78 --
Regression factor scores for Factor 3 -0.08 1.00 0.08 1.00 -0.96 --
Regression factor scores for Factor 4 0.21 1.08 -0.21 0.87 2.52 --
PANSS, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Regression factor scores means with 95% confidence intervals for Factor 1, Factor 2, Factor 3, and Factor 4.
\*\*p \< 0.01. \*\*\*p \< 0.001.
Factor Structure of CTT {#s3_2}
-----------------------
We conducted exploratory factor analysis separately for the entire sample, schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. The four-factor solution explained 72.39% of the total variance in the entire sample, 73.26% in schizophrenia patients, and 71.70% in healthy controls. The distribution of the explained variance of the 4 factors in the two subgroups remained approximately the same as for the entire sample. Factor loading estimates for the whole sample and the two subgroups are shown in [**Table 2**](#T2){ref-type="table"} for each of the four factors, respectively. Factor structures were somewhat divergent in the two subgroups, although both yielded four-factor solutions. Factor 1 reflected speed of perceptual tracking, Factor 2 - cognitive flexibility independent of processing speed, Factor 3 - inattention and impulsivity, and Factor 4 - simple inattention.
######
Factor loadings of Color Trail Test (CTT) scores for the entire sample, schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.
Measure Component
--------------------------------------- ----------- -------- -------- --------
**Entire sample**
CTT 2 time 0.865
CTT 1 time 0.828
CTT 2 prompts 0.813
2-1 difference 0.681 0.671
CTT 1 prompts 0.660
2/1 ratio 0.995
(2-1)/1 proportion 0.995
CTT 1 near-misses 0.838
CTT 2 near-misses 0.772
CTT 2 color sequence errors 0.706
CTT 2 number sequence errors 0.597
CTT 1 number sequence errors 0.443 -0.475
Variance (%) explained by each factor 25.60% 22.15% 12.95% 11.69%
Cumulative explained variance % 25.60% 47.75% 60.70% 72.39%
**Schizophrenia patients**
CTT 2 time 0.938
CTT 1 time 0.852 -0.407
2-1 difference 0.765 0.607
CTT 2 prompts 0.751
(2-1)/1 proportion 0.991
2/1 ratio 0.991
CTT 1 near-misses 0.864
CTT 2 near-misses 0.710
CTT 2 color sequence errors 0.509
CTT 1 number sequence errors 0.698
CTT 1 prompts 0.525 0.617
CTT 2 number sequence errors -0.405
Variance (%) explained by each factor 26.23% 21.91% 13.45% 11.67%
Cumulative explained variance % 26.23% 48.14% 61.59% 73.26%
**Healthy controls**
CTT 1 time 0.823
CTT 2 time 0.645 0.688
CTT 1 prompts 0.639
CTT 2 prompts 0.439
2-1 difference 0.972
(2-1)/1 proportion 0.942
2/1 ratio 0.942
CTT 1 near-misses 0.780
CTT 2 near-misses 0.744
CTT 1 number sequence errors 0.662
CTT 2 number sequence errors 0.833
CTT 2 color sequence errors 0.831
Variance (%) explained by each factor 16.15% 27.24% 15.00% 13.31%
Cumulative explained variance % 16.15% 43.39% 58.39% 71.70%
Performance on Different CTT Measures {#s3_3}
-------------------------------------
### Response Time Indices {#s3_3_1}
As shown in [**Table 1**](#T1){ref-type="table"}, compared to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients scored poorer on response time-based indices: CTT 1 time (*p* \< 0.001), CTT 2 time (*p* \< 0.001), and 2-1 difference (*p* \< 0.001). The effect sizes (*d*) of the analysed processes were found to be 0.98--1.26, thus suggesting large effect sizes.
### Error-Based Indices {#s3_3_2}
Compared to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients required significantly more prompts (*p* \< 0.01) only in CTT 2. The effect size (*d*) of the analysed errors was found to be 0.58, indicating medium effect sizes.
### Factor Indices {#s3_3_3}
Regression factor scores for Factor 1 (*p* \< 0.001) were significantly higher in the patients than the controls. The effect size (*d*) of the analysed scoring was found to be 0.97, indicating large effect sizes.
CTT Indices and Psychopathological Symptoms {#s3_4}
-------------------------------------------
Negative symptoms were significant predictors of CTT 2 time (β = 0.28; *t* = 2.36; *p* = 0.021) and 2-1 difference (β = 0.27; *t* = 2.26; *p* = 0.027), predicting about 7 and 6% of variance, respectively. Disorganization symptoms were significant predictors of CTT 2 time (β = 0.38; *t* = 3.33; *p* = 0.001), 2-1 difference (β = 0.39; *t* = 3.39; *p* = 0.001), and regression factor scores for Factor 1 (β = 0.24; *t* = 2.01; *p* = 0.049), predicting 13, 14, and 4% of variance, respectively. Excited symptoms were a significant predictor of near-misses (β = 0.30; *t* = 2.57; *p* = 0.012), predicting 8% of variance. We identified no other significant predictors of any CTT indices.
Discussion {#s4}
==========
Our primary purpose was to examine the factor structure of CTT in the entire sample and the two subgroups. Factor structures in the entire sample, schizophrenia patients, and healthy controls were similar (Factor 1 = speed of perceptual tracking, Factor 2 = cognitive flexibility independent of processing speed, Factor 3 = inattention and impulsivity, and Factor 4 = simple inattention), suggesting that the error and prompt variables might tap factors dissociable from those based on the time variables. In addition, these qualitative variables may offer an alternative take on the speed vs. accuracy trade-off of CTT performance. Respondents may attempt to increase their speed at the expense of committing errors, or reduce the number of errors at the expense of elevated time scores. Our results are thus similar to those reported in the traumatic brain injury and normative samples ([@B6]).
Our second aim was to compare CTT performance measures in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. In this study was used CTT, as performance on CTT 2 is considered to be more perceptually demanding than completion of TMT B \[49 vs. 25 circles, respectively; ([@B38])\]. Furthermore, the CTT allows the use of more qualitative scoring than the TMT, e.g., number or color sequence errors, near-misses, and prompts ([@B6]). Patients performed poorer on three time-based indices (CTT 1 time, CTT 2 time, and 2-1 difference), which is partly consistent with findings reported by other researchers ([@B12], [@B14], [@B15], [@B17], [@B18]). Despite the between-group differences regarding the 2/1 ratio and the (2-1)/1 proportion, after Holm's *p*-value correction, the differences were no longer statistically significant, which is consistent with other reports ([@B13], [@B16]). Such results are further confirmed by higher regression factor scores for Factor 1 indicates the slower speed of perceptual tracking in schizophrenia patients. Our results are in-line with the data reported by other researchers, especially Dickinson et al. ([@B39], [@B40]). Furthermore, patients' poorer performance could result from their impaired working memory or visual-spatial functions, described elsewhere ([@B11]). Their executive deficits may stem from improper communication between different cortical and subcortical structures of the brain ([@B41]).
Our third purpose was to study the links between all CTT indices and selected psychopathological symptoms. Although Chan et al. ([@B19]) report no correlations with psychopathological symptoms, we found associations between negative and disorganization symptoms and lower processing speed as well as impaired cognitive flexibility. Our findings are thus similar to those reported in a meta-analysis by Dibben et al. ([@B30]), although those authors used the TMT. The observed links between excited symptoms and near-misses could reflect poor impulse control.
We should take account of the study limitations. Firstly, the sample included patients with paranoid schizophrenia, which may hinder generalization to the entire schizophrenia population. Secondly, we did not include analyses of other neurocognitive tests or make a discriminant or convergent validity analysis. Thirdly, the measures-to-person ratio in the CTT in both groups was low but acceptable ([@B42]).
To conclude, the major value of this study is that it provides a new set of clinical and non-clinical data which may be of use for neuropsychologists, clinicians, and psychiatrists to determine more precisely the extent to which CTT 1 and CTT 2 scores, and derived indices reflect patient impaired performance. It seems that using CTT 1 time, CTT 2 time, and 2-1 difference are more appropriate measures of cognitive performance dependent on CTT in schizophrenia. The main finding of this study is also that schizophrenia is primarily characterized by problems in the speed of perceptual tracking and executive processes dependent on processing speed.
Data Availability Statement {#s5}
===========================
The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.
Ethics Statement {#s6}
================
This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of Bioethical Commission of the Institute of Psychology of University of Szczecin with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Bioethical Commission of the Institute of Psychology of University of Szczecin.
Author Contributions {#s7}
====================
All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript. ET was the principal coordinator of the grant, was involved in the study design, and took part in patients recruitment, managed literature searches and analyses, performed the statistical analysis, wrote the first draft of the manuscript. EK was involved in the conceptualization of the project and took part in patients recruitment. MM was involved in the study design and corrected the manuscript. ZL corrected the manuscript. AS corrected the manuscript. JP-W was involved in the study design and corrected the manuscript. LS corrected the manuscript. JS was involved in the study design and corrected the manuscript.
Funding {#s8}
=======
This work was supported by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Szczecin (504-3000-240-940/2015 and 504-3000-240-940/2016) and the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin (FSN-337-06/2016 and FSN-246-05/2017). The project was also financed by the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education's program named "Regional Initiative of Excellence" in 2019--2022 (002/RID/2018/19).
Conflict of Interest {#s9}
====================
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We would like to thank psychology students for their assistance in recruiting and screening subjects for participation in the study.
[^1]: Edited by: Ingrid Melle, University of Oslo, Norway
[^2]: Reviewed by: Christopher Schmidt, Pfizer, United States; Kjetil Sundet, University of Oslo, Norway
[^3]: This article was submitted to Schizophrenia, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry
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MEPs from the Industry, Research and Energy Committee have outlined their strategy to promote energy storage on the way to the EU’s decarbonisation.
Key points in the report are the further development of hydrogen and battery storage technology as well as storage increasement to secure the supply of variable energy generators like solar and wind. To reach the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, new strategies are much needed.
“Energy storage will be essential for the transition to a decarbonised economy based on renewable energy sources. As electricity generated by wind or solar energy will not always be available in the quantities needed, we will need to store energy. Apart from storage technologies that we already know work well like pumped hydro storage, a number of technologies will play a crucial role in the future, such as new battery technologies, thermal storage or green hydrogen. These must be given market access to ensure a constant energy supply for European citizens,” says Lead MEP Claudia Gamon.
Furthermore, the committee supports the efforts of the Commission to standardize battery technology and reduce the dependence on non-European production, especially for raw materials. | https://www.thesmartere.com/en/home/news-and-publications/expert-interviews-and-background-stories/interviews-background-details?tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=4010&cHash=8b4b51149ba0f275ede3118affdd3e91 |
Ecuador - 2017
Jensine Raihan is passionate about fighting for justice, equality, and liberation for all oppressed communities regardless of race, class, ethnic background, immigrant status, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. She has been involved in multiple community-based organizations that have been working to build the collective power of the most marginalized communities so they can fight for justice. She has been involved in Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) for the past three years in which she has fought for gender justice, racial and immigrant justice, civil rights, and educational justice. Jensine has and will continue to devote her life to her community so she can help support leaders within her own community to come together, strategize, and fight for a world in which all people are liberated. Her goals for the year are to become fluent in Spanish so she can come back to New York City and be involved in the immigrant justice movement both within the South Asian community and the Latin American community. As well as to form important relationships with people in Ecuador who have been involved in social movements so she can learn from progressive organizations there and bring it back to her work in the United States.
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Reading List 2012
To read the review and comments about a specific book, note the number in parentheses after the author, click on the Book Journal button, and scroll to that number. You can also enter the book’s title in the Search box to the right.
Fiction:
- Train Dreams, Denis Johnson
- The Great Leader, Jim Harrison
- The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
- Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters, Mark Dunn
- Quartet in Autumn, Barbara Pym
- The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Classic Fiction:
- Death Comes to the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Non-Fiction:
- Teach us to Sit Still, Tim Parks
- Unpacking my Library: Writers and Their Books, ed. Leah Price
- Why Trilling Matters, Adam Kirsch
- The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee
- A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway (2009 version)
- The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
Short Stories:
- Selected Short Stories of John O’Hara, intro by Lewis Begley
- The First 49 Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
- What we Talk about When We Talk About Anne Frank, Nathan Englander
Essays:
- Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan
- The End of the Earth, W.S. Merwin
- Pilgrimmage, Annie Leibovitz
- Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982, Philip Larkin
- Best American Essays: 2011, ed. Edwidge Danticat
Poetry & Drama:
- Coming to That, Dorothea Tanning
- View with a Grain of Rand: Selected Poems, Wislawa Szymborska
- As you Like It, William Shakespeare
- Horoscopes for the Dead, Billy Collins
- Night of the Republic, Alan Shapiro
- Selected Poems, Robert Pinsky
- Pale Fire: A Poem in Four Cantos, John Shade (nee V. Nabokov)
- How Long, Ron Padgett
- Songs of Unreason, Jim Harrison
- Northern Oracle, Kirsten Dierking
- Ghost in a Red Hat, Rosanna Warren
Nature and Gardening:
- Growing a Farmer, Kurt Timmermeister
Art and Art History:
- Julia Margaret Cameron: In Focus, Paul Getty Museum
- An Architectural Alphabet: The Library of Congress
Mystery: | https://epsteinreads.com/book-list-2012/ |
© 2022 MJH Life Sciences™ and Cancer Network. All rights reserved.
Mary E.R. O’Brien, MBBS, discussed results of an exploratory analysis of the phase 3 PEARLS/KEYNOTE-091 study examining pembrolizumab in resected non–small cell lung cancer.
Results from a subgroup analysis of the phase 3 PEARLS/KEYNOTE-091 trial (NCT02504372) were recently presented at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting and demonstrated the benefit of adjuvant immunotherapy using pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the treatment of resected early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Mary E.R. O’Brien, MBBS, chair of the Locoregional Disease (LORD) Subgroup of the UK National Cancer Research Institute, medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, and lead investigator of this study, spoke with CancerNetwork® about how these additional data on the efficacy of pembrolizumab in early-stage NSCLC inform what is already known about immunotherapy in this space.
In this randomized, placebo-controlled, triple-blind study, pembrolizumab significantly improved disease-free survival (DFS) vs placebo in patients with completely resected stage IB (T ≥4cm) to IIIA NSCLC, regardless of PD-L1 expression (n = 1177, HR 0.76, 95% CI, 0.63-0.91, P = 0.0014). Efficacy was demonstrated across all patient subgroups relating to surgery, disease burden, and adjuvant chemotherapy use, and persisted regardless of type of surgery, lymph node involvement, tumor size, or type and extent of adjuvant chemotherapy. Investigators concluded that these data support the efficacy of pembrolizumab following complete tumor resection in NSCLC.
O’Brien: In 2015, data were coming out showing a strong therapeutic effect with the use of immunotherapy in many solid tumors, particularly in lung cancer and melanoma. This was the first time we had seen such a positive signal from a whole new group of drugs. The normal way of drug development is to wait until advanced studies reach maturity and then to slowly move into [larger trials]. Instead we jumped straight [to testing] the effectiveness of these treatments in early-stage NSCLC. This was quite unusual because this process normally takes many years. But [interest grew rapidly] and within a reasonably short time, we had 4 companies with 4 large studies conducted all around the world on the use of immunotherapy after surgery. And now we have results from 2 of those studies, PEARLS/KEYNOTE-091 being one of them. This is a positive study showing that adjuvant immunotherapy [using pembrolizumab] improves outcomes in NSCLC.
Outcomes in an adjuvant study are different from [outcomes in] studies which examine patients with advanced stages of disease. In those studies, patients still have their tumors and their tumors are causing them to feel poor, so treatments [are administered] to make them feel better, shrink their tumors, and prolong their lives. [Meanwhile], in an adjuvant study [like this], patients’ tumors have been removed and they are normally feeling good. They’re recovering from their surgery. Most of them might not have known for very long that they had cancer. Certainly [after tumor removal], there’s nothing to measure. [In this study], we simply followed and watched patients for relapses, and those were our outcomes. Relapse was our end point. In the past, [recurrence after resection] was a fairly bad outcome and patients often didn’t live very long thereafter. Outcomes are a bit different now, but recurrence after surgery is still a devastating event. That was the end point for the PEARLS/KEYNOTE-091 trial and indeed for all the other trials in this setting.
Now of course, the question becomes: [if relapse occurs], does [pembrolizumab] improve overall survival [OS] vs surgery alone? We generally believe prevention of relapse to be the [best outcome] physically, mentally, socially, socioeconomically, and otherwise because patients can carry on living normal lives. We always try to prevent relapse, and therefore finding whether a treatment prolongs patients’ lives takes a long time. Other medical events like heart attacks [must be accounted for]. OS is our secondary end point. We have been challenged on the basis that it’s not good enough just to prevent relapse; you must [also] prolong life. For this trial, we would have to wait a very long time [for those OS results]. [Therefore], we have reported data at the point in which we can show a significant improvement in time until relapse. [OS data and other data] will follow in due course.
We also had to demonstrate that adjuvant immunotherapy [using pembrolizumab] was safe [and tolerable], and that the adverse effects were manageable. Of course, there are adverse effects to every treatment, and there is always a risk [of serious adverse effects], but this treatment generally behaved as we predicted. Most patients were able to take the entire year of planned treatment. [The safety profile] was satisfactory.
[In summary], the decreased chance of [relapse] is a positive finding from this trial. [Moreover, this result was reproduced with atezolizumab (Tecentriq)] in the IMpower010 trial [NCT02486718]. When you have 2 large trials showing the same thing, you’re hopefully in the right place.
All patient groups displayed the same safety profile. We didn’t find any risks related to age, type of surgery, or any other common variables. Toxicity, as is often the case, was something we couldn’t predict. In clinical trials, we always try to enroll strong patients in good form, patients without bad hearts or serious medical problems. A clinical trial selects the best of the best or better than the average patient, because you can focus on the cancer. In a trial, however, your entry criteria ensure a very fit patient population and [minimize] unpredictable events. [Of course], there’s always a small risk of random events, but it was nothing severe enough, nothing predictable, and nothing that indicated which patient groups to select or deselect going forward.
We’re still waiting for results from the other 2 major trials and we’ll be examining those subgroups and the data in detail. [However], the next step now is to align this trial and the other adjuvant trials to the CheckMate 816 trial [NCT02998528], which examined patients receiving chemotherapy and immunotherapy before surgery. Ultimately, we have to determine whether it’s better to treat with immunotherapy before surgery or to remove the tumor and treat with immunotherapy afterwards. [Answering that question] will take another randomized study, but at least we now have evidence that it’s best to treat with immunotherapy vs without immunotherapy. In other words, surgery with chemotherapy is inferior to surgery, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, regardless of whether immunotherapy is given before or after surgery. We just don't yet know which sequence of treatments is best.
Overall, we’re probably going to increase the cure rate for lung cancer by another 10%. It took us about 20 years to improve by 5% with chemotherapy. That sounds small, but [that translates into] thousands of patients every year that are cured. Any improvement [in the cure rate] significantly increases the number of lives saved, particularly any improvement over 5%. I think we're going to improve [outcomes] by 10% with this treatment. It will take a few more years to confirm that, but we’re very confident that this treatment decreases the chance of relapse. [This will mean] more patients can carry on with normal, healthy lives looking after their families, paying their taxes, and going to work. This is an important benefit. Additionally, NSCLC is now a disease we can screen for, particularly in smokers and other high-risk patients. Through smoking cessation and screening, we’ll catch lung cancers at earlier stages, and some of those patients with earlier-stage cancers will benefit from in addition to surgery. These are very exciting times for us. | https://www.cancernetwork.com/view/mary-e-r-o-brien-mbbs-talks-pembrolizumab-in-resected-early-stage-non-small-cell-lung-cancer-by-subgroup |
For informational/historical purposes only.
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NEWS RELEASE
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Ohio
Department of Transportation Internet News Release
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ODOT Performs Travel Demand Survey
Columbus - Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) Director Gordon Proctor today announced the department, in cooperation with area metropolitan planning organizations (MPO), will resume and expand its survey of motorists travel patterns.
"The publics participation in the survey is important because knowing how, why, and where people make their daily trips will help transportation planners and public officials develop strategies for making wise transit and highway investments," said Matt Selhorst, ODOTs deputy director of the Division of Planning. "For example, we can determine which roads to improve, which transit services to expand and other issues that affect Ohioans quality of life."
The survey will collect and analyze travel behavior data from a random selection of 15,000 residents statewide. Results from those surveys will be used by the MPOs to update and create new traffic forecasting models for their region. This information will also assist ODOT in developing a new statewide multi-modal system that will forecast traffic volumes and improve project planning.
Between now and May, residents across Ohio will be contacted to ask if they would like to participate in the study. Those who wish to participate will receive a "diary" to record each persons activities over a day. Individuals will then report this information to a trained survey specialist. All surveying is being conducted by NuStats, an independent research firm, on behalf of ODOT and the MPOs.
This survey is part of a five-year, $7.5 million transportation study, which began in 2000. | http://www.dot.state.oh.us/news/2002/01-10-02.htm |
World's Largest Wind Power Project to Be Launched in Beijing
A large wind power project will be launched this October in Beijing, China, and city residents may start using wind-generated electricity within two years. The total installed capacity of the plant is designed at 400,000 kW with 2 billion kWh in annual generation capacity. It will mainly serve the power grids in Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan City of Hebei Province, according to a report released by the municipal government.
The Guangting plant will be constructed over two phases. The first phase involves 200,000 kW, and is expected to be finished in 2006 with an annual generation volume of 1 billion kWh. The second phase will house the remaining 200,000 kW, and is to be completed in 2008. The total annual power output will be 2 billion kWh, solely for purchase by the East Grids.
The Guangting wind power plant will be located in sites at the Wolf Mountain in Hebei Province and on the coast along the Guanting Water Reservoir, 80 km away from the city center. The plant will be 6 km long from north to south and 14 km wide from east to west.
The Xingfengda Technology Group, the project builder, is also currently in negotiations with the Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympiad regarding providing wind power to the Olympic Games in 2008. | https://eepower.com/news/worlds-largest-wind-power-project-to-be-launched-in-beijing/ |
Featured Stroke Charity:
InterAct Stroke Support
Research Studies
Here are all the research studies currently going on at the moment. Click on each headline for more information.
The Psychological Experience of Living with a Communication Impairment
From: Rachel Adams, University of the West of England
Do you have a communication impairment? Would you like to take part in research?
The research aims to explore adults’ individual experiences of acquiring a communication impairment. It maybe that you have aphasia or no spoken communication at all....
Stroke Laterality Study
From: Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
You are invited to participate in this research project which is investigating changes in people (with and without stroke) with upper limb pain. They know from previous research that some people with longstanding hand or arm pain have difficulty recognizing...
Stroke Research Network
From: Stroke Research Network
Advances in stroke research can improve quality of life, influence patient care, and save precious NHS resources. The Stroke Research Network provides coordination, leadership and practical help, supporting the vital stroke studies that can change people's...
South West Stroke Research Network Studies
From: South West Stroke Research Network
The South West Stroke Research Network aims to improve the speed, quality, and integration of research, ultimately resulting in improved patient care. We provide structures and support to local clinicians to get involved in recruiting patients to high...
Rehabilitation of the Arm and Hand After Stroke
From: University of Southampton
People who have had a stroke are needed for a study looking into the effects of arm and hand rehabilitation after stroke. The study takes place at the University of Southampton.
Participants will receive 2 weeks of one to one daily therapy (2 hours...
Suggest A Research Study...
If you would like to suggest a Research Study, Contact Me now. I would love to hear from you. | http://www.mystroke.co.uk/stroke-research/ |
Keeping abreast of innovations in methods of smart farming
The increase in the global population each year continuously contributes to the depletion of limited natural resources, which causes a strain and challenge for global leaders in the agricultural sector to produce more food to meet global demand. A third of the global workforce is employed in the agriculture sector and with many living in villages and moving to cities seeking more lucrative job opprtunities, food scarcity increases while production decreases. Thus the need to change the way we produce food becomes ever more urgent.
Arinma deals with a range of projects in a variety of geographies. We have helped increase food production while keeping our methods sustainable and climate-friendly, and we’ve also managed to use agriculture to pull families out of poverty. We do this by keeping abreast of innovations in plant science, irrigation methods and other smart farming techniques.
Consultancy and Advisory
- Improve Access to Capital, | https://arinmaholdings.com/agriculture/ |
In this lesson students are first introduced to the integral and its notation. After exploring Riemann sum approximations with more and more rectangles, students explore the idea of infinitely many rectangles giving an exact area under a curve.
Teaching Tips
Summation notation is notoriously hard for students so at this point in the unit, we have chosen to hold off on the formal notation that uses the index of summation to arrive at the left, right, or midpoint of each interval. Instead, we are using informal summation notation by referring to the rectangles from 1 to n, the height of the ith rectangle (f(xi)) and the width of each rectangle, which we are for now assuming is uniform and we are calling ∆x. Students will not see this notation during the activity portion of the lesson but the margin notes will provide this formalization.
During the activity, point out the repetitive nature of their work, adding many terms that all consist of a height and a width. Wonder aloud about a faster, more efficient way of writing this.
We suggest having students complete the first page and then debriefing the first page before turning to page 2 of the activity. We want students to really wrestle with the question of how we can get closer and closer to the exact area under a curve. Have students share out their guesses of the true area as well as the number of rectangles they would need to feel confident in their answer. If students jump straight to infinity, suggest that that would give a great estimate, but it is also awfully cumbersome.
When completing the Important Ideas, be sure to point out various parts of the integral notation and connect it back to summation notation. Once students have seen the integral for a while they tend to forget the expression under the integral symbol still represents a height and a width!
Emphasize that only when we take the limit as n (the number of rectangles) goes to infinity do we get an exact area that can be represented by the integral. This lesson mirrors students’ learning of the derivative, where we developed the idea that only when we take the limit as h goes to 0 does the average rate of change become the instantaneous rate of change that can be represented with a derivative.
Exam Insights
Although the AP Test will not ask students to generate the summation notation in a free response question, they may be asked to recognize the structure in a Multiple Choice Question. Students should know the difference between when the sum represents an approximation (any finite number of rectangles) and when the sum represents an exact area (the limit as the number of rectangles goes to infinity).
Student Misconceptions
New notation can be tricky for students. It is important to spend time going over all the key components of integral notation. Remind students that the limits of integration are x-values and that the integrand represents the height of each rectangle and the differential (dx) represents the width. Explain to students why ∆x becomes dx, and why it it becomes irrelevant whether a left, right, or midpoint sum is being used when the number of rectangles is infinite. We recommend assigning homework problems where students have to use an integral to represent a situation, without actually solving it by hand. | https://www.calc-medic.com/unit-6-day-4 |
- Amunix Pharmaceuticals Inc.
- Location
- Mountain View, CA
- Posted
- Jan 11, 2019
- Discipline
- Clinical, Science/R&D, Immunology, Pharmacology, Toxicology
- Hotbed
- Biotech Bay
- Required Education
- Doctorate/PHD/MD
- Position Type
- Full time
Amunix Pharmaceuticals Inc., a development stage biotech company located in Mountain View, CA, is seeking an experienced, hands-on Scientist/Senior Scientist to provide pharmacology and toxicology expertise for the development of immuno-oncology therapeutics. The successful candidate will be responsible for designing and overseeing the execution of mechanistic-based in-vivo studies through ex-vivo analysis that evaluate the efficacy and safety of drug candidates, including pivotal studies to enable first-in-human clinical trials. He/She is expected to deliver a balanced assessment of the risk/benefit profile associated with drug candidates. The individual must have a strong pharmacology background in cancer immunology, able to work collaboratively with internal cross-functional teams and external CROs and consultants to deliver quality and timely findings in support of drug candidate advancement. The candidate must have a strong desire and ability to work in a fast paced, team-oriented, dynamic environment.
Essential duties and responsibilities include the following:
- Design, implement and oversee efficacy/MOA/PK/biodistribution studies in support of preclinical immuno-oncology programs. Disease-relevant in vivo models including syngeneic, xenografts, genetically engineered and humanized mouse models, and patient-derived xenografts (PDX)
- Design, implement and manage toxicity studies in NHP
- Perform ex vivo studies for pharmacological characterization of drug candidates
- Critical scientific/technical data analysis and interpretation in support immuno-oncology drug discovery and development
- Work both independently and collaboratively with other R&D members in a multi-disciplinary team setting
- Effectively communicate scientific concepts, findings and interpretation to multi-disciplinary teams
- Other duties may be assigned
Requirements:
- Ph.D. in Immunology or related field, with a minimum of 4+ years of in-vivo pharmacology/toxicology work experience in the biotech/biopharmaceutical setting a must
- Strong scientific knowledge in cancer-biology/immuno-oncology is required
- Demonstrated drive for rigorous scientific excellence. Ability to think critically and creatively to identify and solve scientific problems
- Experience with CRO management a must
- Ability to work independently, excellent time management and organization skills to manage multiple projects simultaneously
- Excellent written, oral and interpersonal communication skills. A strong team player
- Physical ability to lift up to 40lbs and work at the lab bench for extended periods of time
Company description
Amunix is a biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class biotherapeutics using our novel half-life extension/drug delivery platform technology. As an employee, you will be able to
- Significantly contribute to an established company (since 2006) with a broadly partnered and validated technology platform which is engaged in the development of a number of novel internal pipeline molecules
- Work in a highly collaborative and motivated working environment
- Receive a comprehensive benefits package, including Health, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Short-term/Long Term Disability and participate in matching 401(k) plans
- Receive compensation based on candidate experience
Amunix provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Amunix complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every, location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfers, leaves of absence, compensation and training. | https://www.biospace.com/job/1933566/scientist-senior-scientist-in-vivo-pharmacology/ |
The UK is set to hold a referendum on its membership in the EU before 2017, with the Conservative Party having tabled the European Union Referendum Bill 2015-16 in May 2015 to enable the referendum. Talk of an exit from the EU is not a new phenomenon, having arisen since the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1972. Moreover, when held, the referendum on its EU membership would be the UK’s second, the first being held in 1975, with 67% of voters in support of its membership. Those in favour of a Brexit have argued that the UK would consequently be better able to control its economic and trade policies and would no longer be subject to the red tape imposed by the EU. However, one should also consider the potential legal implications the Brexit might have on the UK and how these ramifications might end up inflicting a irrecoverable damage on the UK’s economy.
UK has long subscribed to the concept of parliamentary sovereignty – an idea that parliament is ultimate source of law and cannot be overruled. There are several key tenets to this concept as advocated by legal theorist A.V. Dicey – firstly, parliament can rule on matters concerning anything and secondly, an Act of parliament cannot be questioned in court, as it is the supreme lawmaker. However, it is submitted that the UK’s membership in the EEC and the consequent European Communities Act of 1972 (ECA) posed a strong threat to the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. In effect, the ECA incorporated EU law into the domestic laws of the UK and required parliament to take them into consideration whenever it legislated new acts. In fact, in the renowned case of Factortame (No.2), a group of Spanish fishermen brought a case against the UK government for breach of EU law by requiring a 75% British stake in their companies, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that national laws must be disapplied if they were in contravention with EU laws.
It is therefore submitted that EU laws are influential and provide for leading decisions in the UK courts. A Brexit would potentially cause much confusion to the judiciary and economy in general. Previously, ECJ decisions were binding on UK courts and a slew of cases have been built on the EU’s legal foundation. Moreover, difficult decisions regarding certain points of law, such as the one discussed earlier in the Factortame case, could be referred to the ECJ for clarification. However, a Brexit would necessarily mean that UK courts have to decipher important and conflicting decisions on their own, mainly which would probably arise because its membership in and subsequent exit from the EU. While seemingly unrelated to the financial markets, this could potentially inject unnecessary instability in the terms of the laws that would subsequently be determined. The structure of the EU is as such to ensure that member states can carry out commerce without worrying about arbitrary laws that might hinder trade.
In addition, pre-existing legislation that came consequent to the ECA would be repealed following a Brexit. They could only be reinstated by legislating yet another new act, one which would cost additional time and effort to be wasted. In the alternative, it would cause confusion to the financial markets. Business confidence would take a hit because they would no longer be able to rely on standardised laws with confidence, knowing that they are implemented across the entire EU trade bloc.
But not all hope is lost. There are still several options available for the UK to somewhat maintain its financial position in Europe. The UK could potentially choose either to stay part of the European Economic Area like Norway and Iceland or be a signatory to the European Free Trade Association like Switzerland. These could potentially mitigate the economic damage that a Brexit might cause.
In summary, this is a simplistic expansion on the possible legal implications a Brexit might bring about. Nevertheless, it is fair to suggest that an exit from the bloc would probably bring about greater uncertainty as regards the laws surrounding commerce. This does not bode well for business and consumer confidence for those in the UK. It is time for UK voters to think and vote wisely.
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Our staff is professionally trained and educated in interior design to service architects, builders, contractors, interior designers and decorators in the latest designs. Interior Trade Cartel’s mission has always been to exceed our customer’s expectations in services while offering the latest in home furnishings to the design trade at an exceptional value. | https://www.interiortradecartel.com/product-lines |
2-year-old Emma Sweet still missing after second day of searching
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BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY, Ind. — The search for 2-year-old Emma Sweet will pick up again Sunday morning after authorities wrapped up their search Saturday evening with not much more than what they started with.
The Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office, Indiana State Police, DNR and several fire departments picked up their search for Sweet this morning. Several boats searched the east fork of the White River while dozens of firefighters combed through nearby fields.
Early this morning, a jacket that Emma was last seen wearing was found about a mile from where her father’s car entered the river.
“With the coat being found downstream and talking to [Emma’s father] again, we can’t say 100 percent but it’s looking more like she’s probably in the river some place,” Sheriff Matt Myers said.
Credit: Kristy Gale
Emma went missing early Friday morning when duck hunters discovered a truck partially submerged. Inside was Emma’s father, Jeremy Sweet, but his daughter was nowhere to be found.
Sheriff Myers says Sweet has given several conflicting stories about what happened to Emma.
“When we first made contact with him yesterday morning it was that he had dropped Emma off at Casey’s. Right after that he says she was on the hood of the car of his vehicle her coat was wet so he took the coat off and that’s where she got swept away,” Sheriff Myers said. “There is really three stories now and none of them match.”
The sheriff also said a syringe was discovered on Sweet at the hospital and his family has told police that he has a history of drug use.
Sweet’s car was pulled from the river today and is being taken to a secure location. Sheriff Myers says they’re working to get a search warrant so they can look through the car more thoroughly.
Jeremy Sweet’s trucks is pulled from the East Fork of the White River Saturday morning as authorities searched for his missing two-year-old daughter Emma. (Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office)
“Our main concern right now is finding [Emma] and when we talk to him that’s sort of where we focus our efforts,” Sheriff Myers said. “Right now our main focus is finding this little girl“
Myers says they’ve received an outpouring from the community wanting to come and help with the search. However, he says right now they have things under control and are doing everything they can.
“We want to bring Emma home to her family,” Sheriff Myers said. “I think they know it’s going to be more of a recovering a body I think they — they understand that.”
Crews will begin searching again on Sunday morning.
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There are many degrees of failure in the world of design. This is a hard truth that every designer has to learn one way or another. A hard knock lesson that has the ability to be the best teacher a designer could ask for, or completely crush their spirit. Dealing with our failures is never easy, especially when a personal connection is involved. These failures can appear throughout the design process, but each failure can be seen as an opportunity. So where do we go to learn how to deal with and learn from our failures? Reach way back and consult the great Sun Tzu and his masterpiece ‘The Art of War’.
Through the designs we create, we have the ability to directly influence another person’s behavior. The ethical implications of this are important and not easily definable. I was interested in ethics before I ever considered becoming a designer, but the lessons I learned while studying philosophy impacts the way I view my designs. In nature, our goal is a good one. We strive to help others by improving the interactions that define their life. This drives us to create and innovate new ways of interacting with old concepts. The question remains, do we have the right to influence another person? Further, are there guiding principles we can follow that can keep us on the moral path? The answers to these questions rests on the shoulders of the whole community, not a single person or group.
Users are not like us — they view the world with a completing different filter. As designers, we’ve trained ourselves to notice every little detail about a design — everything grabs our attention. We assume that users do the same when coming to a site or using an application for the first time. We assume that all those details that took us, as the designers, hours to figure out just right will catch a user’s eye and invoke pleasant thoughts and emotions that go along with facilitating a positive user experience. But, that’s not how our brains work. In fact, the average user will miss almost everything within their field of vision when working with a design for the first time. This phenomenon occurs all the time during usability studies, much to our bewilderment.
Field Studies are great learning opportunities to capture personal details about people and their environments. This activity provides challenges though, like when you find yourself in an uncomfortable position due to an offhand comment or if you notice something about their environment that is a danger. Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to conduct field studies where sensitive information was the focus and odd, or unexpected, situations came up. Based on my experiences, I’ve put together lessons learned that can help practitioners prepare for performing fields studies, and also provide warning signs for when things start to go awry.
Having a dedicated User Experience Designer on projects is still a rare thing for many teams. In many cases, the creative churns out a design, an analyst specs it out, and a developer is then tasked to build it. During this session, I’ll go over many common pitfalls that can negatively impact a users experience, and offer arguments that the audience can then use to challenge the creative or analyst to rethink the design.
Over the past five years, the world of user experience and design has changed greatly. We’ve been able to adapt and grow as we faced down many challenges in the ever changing world of technology. But, are we ready for the next five years? If not, what can we do as design professionals to prepare ourselves for the “next big thing” that will rock the technological world. Come hear how we can use what we’ve learned to help prepare for the future, and get a glimpse at some of the technologies that we might be designing for before you know it.
The term ‘User Experience’ has been associated with User Interface for too long. An experience isn’t limited to a navigation scheme or the use of a particular product. It transcends the computer screen or mobile device, and has lasting impacts on our lives. What do these impacts mean? How can they be managed? These are questions that User Experience Designers try to answer. A user interface can be a gateway to these lasting impacts, but a positive user experience requires much more than that. | http://www.onestraythought.com/2012/04/ |
What COVID-19 May Leave Behind: Technology-Related Job Postings in CanadaCOVID-19 affects technology adoption: online job postings for technology-related occupations fall less during pandemic lockdowns and pick up faster during reopenings than postings for more traditional occupations.
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Examining the Impact of Home Purchase Restrictions on China’s Housing MarketHow do “cooling measures” in the housing market—policies aimed to stabilize prices—affect the market? We use a structural model of housing demand and price competition among developers to evaluate China’s home purchase restriction policies implemented in 2010–11.
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The Interplay of Financial Education, Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion and Financial Stability: Any Lessons for the Current Big Tech Era?The objective of this paper is twofold. First, we assess whether financial education might be a suitable tool to promote the financial inclusion opportunities that big techs provide. Second, we study how this potential financial inclusion could impact financial stability.
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Technology Adoption in Input-Output NetworksWe study how input-output networks affect the speed of technology adoption. In particular, we model the decision to adopt the programming language Python 3 by software packages. Python 3 provides advanced features but is not backward compatible with Python 2, which implies it comes with adoption costs.
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Changing Fortunes: Long-Termism—G-Zero, Artificial Intelligence and DebtThis paper discusses three long-term forces that are acting on the global economy and their implications for companies and policy-makers.
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Technological Progress and Monetary Policy: Managing the Fourth Industrial RevolutionThis paper looks at the implications for monetary policy of the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which is sometimes called the “fourth industrial revolution.”
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Product Sophistication and the Slowdown in Chinese Export GrowthChinese real export growth decelerated considerably during the last decade. This paper argues that the slowdown largely resulted from China moving to a more sophisticated mix of exports: China produced more sophisticated goods over which it had pricing power instead of producing greater volumes of less sophisticated products. | https://www.bankofcanada.ca/jel/o/o1/www.bankofcanada.ca/jel/o/o1/ |
As a growing number of people have begun dedicating additional time to their mental health and creative pursuits, writing has become a more common hobby than it was pre-COVID-19. The mundane things we jot down on a day-to-day basis will be read by future generations –what kind of foods we ate, how our social lives were impacted, the aspects of our teenage years we feel we’ve lost.
These journals will not be perceived as boring or dull, but as how people of countless ages, cultures, and backgrounds survived and lived during a deadly pandemic, turbulent political times, modern genocides, and much, much more. A daily journal will be an exceptionally valuable text to a historian, even if to the author it is simply an account kept to pass the time.
According to the Washington Post, “In early April, the National Women’s History Museum in Alexandria, Va., launched a covid journaling project aimed at detailing the experiences of women and girls as well as nonbinary individuals from a variety of backgrounds.” Lori Ann Terjesen, director of education at the museum, revealed how the female voice is frequently left out of the historical narrative and how this project avoids repeating such a pattern. The use of the internet allows for a wide range of experiences to be shared, and this will be a memorable occasion in history when such a large amount of significant events took place, and where the perspective, influence, and experience of so many individuals can be documented.
We observe the usefulness of journal accounts during the 1918 influenza pandemic, where we have the experience of both at-home patients and soldiers dying in the trenches of World War I. Because of the wide range of backgrounds of soldiers, we can read journals from the perspectives of many. An excerpt taken from an article published in the Smithsonian Magazine shares the accounts of a civilian experiencing symptoms of the flu, and what techniques were considered cures. The article then goes on to say, “[That account] is one of countless diaries and letters penned during the 1918 influenza pandemic. … These century-old musings represent not only invaluable historical resources, but sources of inspiration or even diversion.”
Similarly, we can look to the literary influence that Anne Frank has had on the world. Although her diary was shared with the public without her consent, — and there are many arguments to this point — the perspective this young girl provided through her journaling is unmatched. It makes the gruesome history of World War II personal, giving it emotion rather than making it a bundle of events and numbers tossed at students during history class.
Civil War historian and high school educator Kevin M. Levin said, “The present moment offers a unique opportunity for [students] to create their own historical record.” The pandemic is a grand period in the course of human history, even though it does not feel like it as we experience it firsthand. It is important to remember that our own experiences will be embraced by the next generation.
Personally, I have taken to writing a journal entry every other day. If not for my own mental benefit and clarity, then for the reasons given above. The insight individuals can give, the views we can offer, and the history we can bring to life through our own hands is a unique experience. And, while I can pretty confidently say we’re not thrilled about it, there’s certainly an element of merit to be felt. | https://berkeleyhighjacket.com/column/coping-with-covid-19-journaling/ |
Futures in the United States and Europe are trading lower following the massive selloff witnessed in stock markets in yesterday’s session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 800 points. The uncertainty and volatility in stock markets are being pumped by headlines about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with investors fearing a rise in inflation owing to sanctions imposed on Russia and the American economy may face stagflation if the situation worsens. Although crude oil prices took a step back, they are still near the 14-year high, while European commodities such as wheat, gas, and nickel climbed higher.
In Monday’s session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.37%, and the S&P 500 index dropped 2.95%. The Nasdaq, the tech-savvy index, dipped 3.62% while the Russell 2000 slumped 2.48%.
Events Today
Today, investors will be digesting industrial production numbers from Germany. Moreover, Germany is considered the powerhouse of the European region, and its performance is closely looked at by investors and affects the European stock markets. The industrial production report basically shows the value of output, after adjusting for inflation, produced by mines, manufacturers, and utilities. This is an important metric used by investors to understand what the economy may look like over the next few months as manufacturing responds quickly to changing market dynamics. Typically, numbers coming in above expectations are considered a positive.
Stock Market
The biggest factor influencing the performance of stock markets continues to be the headlines regarding Russia’s aggression on Ukraine, along with harsh sanctions being implemented by the United States and its allies to push Russia’s back against the wall and potentially stop their military action from seeping into other European nations as well. The latest restriction being considered on Russia is banning imports of Russian oil, which has sparked panic in crude oil markets with oil prices rising rapidly and climbing above $130 per barrel.
On the other hand, Russia has responded to this development by threatening to curb natural gas supplied to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Hence, potential supply chain bottlenecks of energy and commodity supplies as a result of the war could push global consumer prices higher, despite tighter monetary policies being implemented by central banks around the world.
Moving onwards, the rise in inflation seems to be the biggest worry that investors are facing, while the outlook for growth is turning negative by the day, as can be interpreted by the small difference between yields on two-year and ten-year treasury bonds. This development is dragging investor sentiment down and adversely affecting all sectors. This is why, even when the stock prices of companies decline, stock traders seem to no longer be interested in purchasing the dip.
Cryptocurrencies
The price of bitcoin dipped below $38,000 on Monday, falling nearly 4%, while Ethereum, the second largest digital coin, dropped nearly 7%, spurred by the broader sell off in equity markets yesterday. Yesterday, investor sentiment suffered as investors reassessed the risks associated with the Russia-Ukraine conflict and likely projected that the war’s ramifications would last longer than previously anticipated.
Furthermore, cryptocurrency markets may experience additional volatility this week as President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order outlining the American government’s strategy for catering to the blockchain space. The order will examine the regulatory changes required by the United States as well as how cryptocurrencies may affect the country’s national security.
Oil
Oil prices have rallied over the past few days, rising above $130 per barrel because of the risk of global oil supplies potentially taking a hit if sanctions are imposed on Russia’s oil. However, gains were capped by Germany’s stance that it is not looking to curb imports of energy from Russia. Likewise, even if the United States and some of its allies place a ban on Russian oil, these countries are looking to Gulf oil-rich countries to fill the gap.
Gold
Due to the volatility and uncertainty we are experiencing in global financial markets, demand for safe-haven commodities is rapidly rising as investors look to hedge their value of wealth from falling until the global macroeconomic situation stabilises to some extent. Investors are liquidating their positions in risky assets and are hesitant to pump more capital into equity markets. These dynamics have pushed the price of the yellow metals towards $2,000.
Forex
Investors should note that the industrial production numbers to be published today in Germany are likely to influence the euro. Moreover, just like gold, investors are finding the U.S. dollar more appealing under these circumstances, because the U.S. dollar index rose to its highest level in 22 months, touching nearly 99.22.
Asian Pacific Markets Just like the American stock market indices, major Asian-Pacific stock markets have also been under fire as investors are closely looking at how the Russia-Ukraine war could impact the growth of economies around the world. As of 01.21 a.m. EST, the Nikkei dipped 1.71% and the Shanghai index declined 1.29%. The Hang Seng index, in Hong Kong, slumped 0.56%. The ASX 200 index fell 0.83%, and the Seoul Kospi decreased 0.82%. | https://www.avatrade.com/blog/market-analysis/stock-futures-plunge-bitcoin-price-drops |
Some simple approaches that should be meaningful and realistic about the risks that may or could affect the achievement of contractual objectives are as follows: Of course, not all possible risks can or should be considered. The likelihood, feasibility and willingness to take risks of the parties should guide the choice of contractual risks to be addressed. It must be recognized that contracts can also trigger risks in obvious and obscure ways. A small book would be needed to take into account the range of risks that a contract may face or induce over its lifetime. Direct contractual risk specifically concerns the content of a contract. There are a few types of key risks to manage. During the negotiations and BEFORE the execution of the contract, it is necessary to determine whether the risks associated with the relationship are satisfactorily addressed by a particular language in the agreement, by representation, guarantee, defect and risk allocation clauses. To do this, it is preferable to review the final draft by a knowledgeable person (i.B a strategic procurement representative or the Office of the Advocate General) who is not directly responsible for ratifying the agreement. These contract reviews typically include: (1) estimating the extent of the identified risks associated with the desired business venture, (2) deciding whether the projected effects of those risks exceed the buyer`s risk appetite, and (3) evaluating and implementing appropriate transfer and/or financing mechanisms for losses beyond the stated risk tolerances whose underlying economy is the Unsupported hypothesis. A contract can mitigate risk if it identifies situations with a good probability of occurrence and/or negative effects on the results of the contract and describes approaches to minimize or, preferably, eliminate this probability and/or effect. A standard method of risk management in contracts is to assign any risk to the party that is best able to manage it. A very useful by-product of the review process is the ability to advise the legal team on any identified deficiencies in the contract, particularly those related to risk.
Many families don`t realize that putting their loved one in their care is not the same as choosing a nursing home. Your adult care facility gives residents something they can`t find in a care facility, their independence. As you prepare to add new residents to your adult foster family, you are likely to have questions about negotiated risk agreements. It is also likely that potential residents and their families will also have questions. Use this article as a guide to understand and explain negotiated risk agreements. If you would like more information about contractual risks and in particular how Gatekeeper can help you with risk management, contact us today for a free consultation. Finally, if it is not yet available, you should promote the idea that an excellent contribution to contract risk mitigation is a formalized explanation of the organization`s position on the absence or presence of certain contractual clauses with their preferred attitudes and acceptable alternatives. Personal Care & Assisted Living Insurance Center, LLC (PCALIC, LLC) offers a model risk agreement negotiated in the member`s only section of our website. Download this sample and ask your attorney to review the changes needed to comply with state laws and protect your adult care facility. Although contracts may include an unlimited number of parties, the most common type of contract is between two parties, one acting as a supplier, seller or lessor and the other party acting as a buyer, buyer or lessee. Whenever a member of the Harvard community enters into a binding contract, it could require the university to meet the obligations prescribed in the agreement, no matter how costly or difficult they may be.
Persons authorized to perform contracts on behalf of Harvard therefore have a duty to act in the best interests of the university without taking undue risks. In accordance with Harvard`s role in a particular contractual situation and BEFORE entering into negotiations with other participants, it is important to consider the business objectives (opportunities) behind the contractual relationship, the business risks arising from the conclusion of the relationship and whether the proposed compensation is appropriate given the services to be provided/provided when weighed against the allocation of these risks. This has given organizations invaluable knowledge about previously unconsidered risks that can then be discussed and resolved. These decisions strengthen ties between companies and often improve overall efficiency, resulting in gains for all parties involved. All of the company`s efforts involve taking risks to some extent. With that in mind, there are steps that can be taken to mitigate these risks and ensure you get the most out of every business. (2) does not apply to construction contracts for investment projects; On the HPPM/CAPS website, you will find model agreements that reflect standard practices applicable to investment projects. Negotiated risk agreements are a great way to document changes made to residents and conversations about changes with their family or power of attorney. By clearly documenting health changes, care changes and referrals, you protect your adult care facility from potential lawsuits. Checking if any of these risks exist can be tedious without the right technological support. Appropriate and consistent treatment of contractual risk (through transfer and/or funding mechanisms) is an essential lever to control the overall cost of risk for the university. It is not the job of risk finance and insurance to prescribe universal contract formats and content throughout the organization, but to provide advice on the choices available to Harvard employees to align their risk appetite with the particular aspects of the agreement in question.
While the ministry maintains limited financial resources to support the legal liability risk assumed by TUBS, primarily in the form of the Master`s Insurance Program, policies have certain limitations in size and scope. Therefore, the parties should consider themselves the primary owner and the financially responsible party for the risks assumed contractually, unless otherwise transferred by written agreement. An underfunded contract management function can only be profitable through personal exploits that are ultimately unsustainable, or by focusing only on a subset of the organization`s contracts that present the highest risk, on the basis that something is better than nothing. In general, a contract should clearly set out the obligations that apply to each party, individually or collectively, in order to minimize disputes over who should do what and when, and to mitigate the risks of non-compliance that could affect the outcome of the contract in any way. In general, the lower the awareness of contract management where it matters in the organization, the higher the risk. A typical contract examiner will recognize fairly quickly and should immediately alert management that a contract is complex, that expertise is needed to uncover hidden risks, and that there could be significant avoidable risk if this expertise is not sought. In this article, we discussed a small subset of the types of risks that can arise in relation to contracts. A conceptually simple remedy for intrinsic risks is available: the contract overview in plain language.
Contracts in all their forms are integrated into virtually every part of academic operations and represent an important and integral support mechanism to advance Harvard`s mission. . | http://bibliotekaradzyn.michalki.ayz.pl/2022/01/agreement-of-risk/ |
The results of snap parliamentary elections held in Kyrgyzstan on Sunday mean that six political parties will represent the next legislature. A political party needs to secure 5% polled votes to qualify for a seat at the parliament. When parliamentary elections were held in 2015, they were based on proportional representation which allowed a successful party to claim 65 out of the total 120 seats, Anadolu Agency reminds.
After the referendum in April this year which allowed rewriting of the constitution, the number of total MPs was reduced to 90. Moreover, no party can have more than 27 members in the parliament, with 60% seats allocated to MPs nominated by the parties who secure a minimum of 5% votes. Another 40% seats are allotted to individual candidates winning on a first-past-the-post basis, where a candidate who received the most votes is declared the winner. Therefore, the incoming parliament is reduced both in size and ability to assert its position on crucial national issues.
Some observers said that fragmentation has left the legislature fractured and feeble where the legislators in small fractions may not be able to take a united stand on crucial national issues. Igor Shestakov, an expert in Kyrgyz politics anticipates that some independent candidates who got elected directly by their voters are expected to serve the interests of their constituencies rather than toeing the line of the incumbent setup. Hence, it will be this set of legislators who will seek to have their voice heard.
For carrying out reforms to build a strong progressive state, strong candidates need to bring competence, experience, professionalism, skills, and knowledge to the legislative process. In Kyrgyzstan there is still much distance that needs to be covered.
Looking at possible reasons which contributed to a weaker legislature, observers point to the ad-hoc nature of the electoral process, where most parties did not recruit the best candidates who could strengthen transparency, accountability, fair representation, as well as to contribute to effective governance.
MPs left with fewer powers
There are not many political parties in Kyrgyzstan with a firm popular base. They mostly comprise alliances made by groups (based on ethnic, business interests and by ex-officials) to promote their stakes.
Kyrgyz commentator, Emil Dzhuraev said under the new constitution, the MPs are left with fewer powers. He doubts if the parliament could still enjoy any significant political weight under these changes.
Observers, however, acknowledge that unlike in the past, more politicians from rival parties were allowed to contest in the elections. But the fact is that 1,300 candidates fielded by 21 political parties to contest 90 seats caused crowding, confusion, and affected the strengths of candidates.
The pro-establishment parties have succeeded to secure lion’s share in the new legislature in the following order: 15 seats by Ata-Zhurt Kyrgyzstan (Fatherland - Kyrgyzstan) steered by the security chief, Kamchibek Tashiev, 12 seats by Ishenim (Trust) supported by President Sadyr Zhaparov and nine seats by Intymak (Harmony), led by the Speaker Talant Mamytov besides five seats by Iman Nuru (Ray of Faith).
In the new parliament, Alliance – a left-leaning liberal block -- will claim seven seats, while Butun Kyrgyzstan (United Kyrgystan) led by veteran political leader Adakhan Madumarov will have to remain content with six seats.
Thus, the country’s political landscape has changed, and the reduced representation of political parties in Kyrgyzstan’s next legislature may prompt them to form three fractions to pursue their parliamentary activities. However, the new parliament may not prove as assertive as its predecessor, because under the new constitution, the power is concentrated in the hands of the president, says Kyrgyz political analyst, Mars Sariev.
One may not rule out a risk that some disgruntled elements after the announcement of the election results, may try to protest and rally crowds to demand cancellation of results. Some may attempt to mobilize protestors against higher prices for gasoline, food, coal, and electricity services. But, so far, the perception about the incumbent government has not crossed the critical threshold, says veteran Kyrgyz politician Bakyt Baketayev.
4th exercise, in single year
The just-concluded election was the fourth such exercise in a single year. In January, there were presidential elections combined with a referendum on the future form of the government. Then a referendum on constitutional amendments was held in April, followed by local bodies elections in July. All these elections had a turnout of below 40%. Holding of polls in quick succession, caused exhaustion among the voters as reflected by the voter turn of 34.43% in parliamentary elections on Sunday. This is 23% lower than the 2015 parliamentary elections where the turnout was above 57.56%. | https://en.vestikavkaza.ru/analysis/Kyrgyzstan-holds-4th-elections-in-single-year.html |
Boundaries?
Parents frequently ask me to work on setting boundaries to their children and I definitely offer many tools on how to do that. Although one important aspect we need to explore first is how do I put boundaries TO MYSELF?
Do I ignore my own boundaries in order to please other people?
How much am I able to say “no” to my children and still contain their anger / sadness / frustration?
How much am I in tune with my own needs, even basic needs like sleeping or eating?
Do I practice self-care?
Children will not learn to respect OUR boundaries, if we OURSELVES don’t respect our boundaries! Moreover, if we are going to show them that love is about SAYING YES ALL THE TIME, TO EVERYTHING, there is a huge probability that at least one of our children will grow into an adult that also ignore his own boundaries, and will please other people, sometimes even up to dangerous situations, or abuse….
The first step in setting clear boundaries to our children is TO MODEL PERSONAL BOUNDARIES.
A few practical examples:
Don’t drop anything you are doing in order to get your child water / food / a toy – It’s ok to say: “no, I can’t right now”, or “I’ll finish my coffee and will be right there”…
Share, talk about, and model to your children how you practice self-care: go out with a friend, practice sports or a hobby, nap, treat yourself with something tasty.
If your child asks you to play with her, it’s ok to say “I don’t feel like playing right now” or “No, I don’t really enjoy this game”. | https://www.barbara4parents.com/post/boundaries |
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Job Details
Job ID:
3982848
Application Deadline:
Posted until Filled
Posted:
July 28, 2022
Starting Date:
August 29, 2022
Job Description
Chelmsford Public Schools - Announcement of Teaching Vacancies for the 2022- 2023 School Year
The Chelmsford Public Schools is now accepting applications for the following vacancy. The District reserves the right to change this vacancy or not fill this vacancy based on further staffing changes, enrollment, or budget.
Position
: Long Term Substitute Guidance/ School Counselor - High School
Location
: Chelmsford High School, Reports to the Coordinator of Social Emotional Learning & School Counseling, House Dean and Principal
General Description:
To provide, as a member of the counseling department staff, a comprehensive counseling program for students in grades nine through twelve and specifically provide services to meet the needs of assigned students; consult with teachers, staff and parents to enhance effectiveness in helping students; and to provide support to other high school educational programs. School counselors adhere to, address, and practice all of the skills and competencies detailed by the MA Model for School Counseling and the American School Counselor Association National Model.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
School counseling practices are aligned to the ASCA Ethical Standards
Be an advocate for all students
Consult with teachers, staff, and parents regarding the developmental needs of students.
Counsel individuals and small groups of students experiencing social, emotional, and/or behavioral problems
Apply counseling theories and techniques to support students in crisis
Acknowledge signs and symptoms to identify and support students in need that may require a referral for private counseling or require reporting to DCF
Team member for Student Study Team (SST) and Child Protection Team (CPT)
Deliver classroom lessons aligned to the counseling curriculum
Lead or co-lead group counseling for identified students
Attend, participate, and advocate for students at 504 and IEP meetings
Monitor 504 plans
Organize and attend parent/teacher/counselor meetings as needed on an ongoing basis.
Knowledgeable of the post-secondary college and career planning process
.
Position Type:
Full-time
Positions Available:
1
Welcome to Chelmsford High School!
Chelmsford High School is a public high school located in Chelmsford Massachusetts, established in 1927. The school is based on a three-house system. The houses are named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John Whittier, three well-known New England writers. Each house has two to three school counselors, a dean, and an office. All students are assigned a house at the beginning of their freshman year. Chelmsford High School offers opportunities in high-quality academics, community service, performing arts experiences, championship-level athletics, and mentor relationships in a technologically rich environment.
Equal Opportunity Employer
Chelmsford Public Schools is committed to maintaining a work and learning environment free from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, pregnancy, gender, sexual orientation, marital/civil union status, ancestry, place of birth, age, citizenship status, veteran status, political affiliation or disability, as defined and required by state and federal laws.
Job Requirements
<li>Successful candidates will hold the appropriate degree and MA DESE certification. <li> Proficient in Microsoft Office <li>Ability to navigate a Student Information System (preferably X2) <li>Preferred knowledge and use of Naviance </li>Understanding of the 504 process. <li>Please bring official transcripts to the hiring supervisor if interviewed in the event that you are recommended for hire. </li>Commitment to high standards and expectations of equity.
Citizenship, residency or work VISA in United States required
Application Questions
This employer has requested that all applicants answer the following questions. It is
highly recommended
that you type any essays in a word processing program, save them, and then paste them on the proceeding job application page.
1.
Describe how this position aligns with your professional goals?
Short Essay
(Answer limited to 600 characters, including spaces)
2.
Why are you interested in working with adolescents in a high school school environment?
Short Essay
(Answer limited to 600 characters, including spaces)
Contact Information
John MacIsaac
200 Richardson Road
North Chelmsford, Massachusetts 01863
Phone: 978-251-5111
Email:
[email protected]
Apply for this job! | https://www.schoolspring.com/jobs/job.cfm?jid=3982848&&iframe=1&employer=10764 |
Donald Judd: Specific Furniture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA, until 4 November) brings to mind Ad Reinhardt's quip that sculpture is what you bump into when stepping back from viewing wall-bound art. A couple of Judd's flanged metal chairs, were they not pedestaled here, might deliver sharp reminders of Judd's demand for design "rigour" to careless viewers of the drawings included in the show.
Judd believed that any chair masquerading as sculpture, like any sculpture purporting to serve as furniture, was doomed to aesthetic failure. But the meaning of Minimalism, the term critics still drape upon Judd's work, includes "hard to differentiate from non-art realities".
Judd (1928-94) rejected the term Minimalism for his three-dimensional art because it suggested that a narrow process guided decisions in his search for optimum materiality and form. (The complexity of his late multicoloured works make this rejection explicit.) Yet many of the chairs he designed (and some that he collected) might qualify as sculpture in the eyes of someone only casually familiar with his art.
The main difference between his sculpture and furniture concerns "proportion"; as Judd defined it: furniture must have "visible reasonableness", including functionality—a test he thought no worthy sculpture needed to pass in the same terms.
Despite the fact that Judd had invited me there, along with some other guests who had already left, and despite the analgesic effect of the single malt we sipped while in laconic conversation, I could not help noticing that the discomfort of his furniture and of his company had much in common.
As the uncushioned chair taxed my bones and its arms wore grooves into mine, I began to feel a prisoner of his sensibility, as even his most severe sculpture and architecture had—and still has—never made me feel.
This experience came back to me as I sat in the oak Frame Chair that SFMoMA has installed for visitors' use, along with several other examples of Judd furniture, just outside the exhibition's single large room. The chair makes you sit at attention, somatically enforcing Judd's temperamental preference—not that one pay attention to him, but to have one's attention turned on, primed to listen, to notice, to contribute, as appropriate.
His conversation, not without humour, frequently rewarded the heightened alertness it demanded, but like the seating, it could be wearying.
A fellow visitor at SFMoMA squirmed in another boxy Judd chair nearby because only her toes could reach the floor. That Judd's furniture is a better fit for me, I remembered, depends on his proportions having been similar to mine, though he was bulkier.
The exhibition gives visitors close views of Judd furniture, grouped on plywood islands, along with pieces by Gerrit Rietveld, Rudolph Schindler and Alvar Aalto that he collected and used. Flanking walls display a selection of Judd's related drawings.
As insistent as Judd was upon his furniture's distinctness from his sculpture, he handled both, as photographs in the exhibition guide affirm, with keen attention to their claims on surrounding space and settings.
Comfortable furniture tends to withdraw from our awareness as we use it. For all the open structure that Judd's can have—airy shelves incorporated into chairs and tables—it refuses to sink into use. Here, that resistant quality comes clear, though many may question their experience of it. | https://www.theartnewspaper.com/review/settling-into-donald-judd-s-demanding-furniture |
Thousands of people were killed, millions were displaced and billions of dollars in damages occurred in 2018 due to extreme weather events related to human-caused climate change, according to a Christian Aid report published on Dec. 27.
The report estimates that the top 10 extreme weather events last year – including drought, fires, floods, hurricanes and typhoons – caused between $84.8 billion and $96.2 billion in damages.
The highest costs resulted from Hurricanes Florence in September ($17 billion) and Michael in October ($15 billion).
Christian Aid noted these figures likely underestimate the total costs, as they do not factor in losses related to productivity and lack of insurance coverage.
“All of these disasters are linked with human-caused climate change,” the report said. “In some cases, scientific studies have shown that climate change made the particular event more likely or stronger, for example with warmer oceans supercharging tropical storms. In other cases, the event was the result of shifts in weather patterns – like higher temperatures and reduced rainfall that made fires more likely – that are themselves consequences of climate change.”
At least 3,217 deaths resulted from these weather events, according to Christian Aid estimates.
“Despite the severity of the extreme weather that struck the world, 2018 is unlikely to be exceptional,” the report warned. “In fact, it may soon seem a mild year.”
The full report is available here. | https://ethicsdaily.com/climate-change-killed-thousands-cost-billions-in-2018/ |
In order to meet our maternal and newborn health objectives, we need health professionals and community health workers that:
- Are readily available where and when needed
- Have the necessary knowledge and skills for the services they are providing
- Are appropriately motivated to provide the needed service
- Are adequately supported and enabled with supervision, support systems (supply chain and information systems), necessary infrastructure (space, water, electricity, and communications), and more
Ensuring that this set of conditions is met depends on adequate human resources policy and management.
78
percentage of global births that were assisted by suitably qualified health workers between 2013 and 2016
56
percentage of women in low-income countries that were assisted by suitably qualified health workers during birth
More information
Over the past decade and a half, considerable emphasis within global maternal-newborn health programs has been placed on “skilled birth attendance,” i.e., births assisted by suitably qualified health workers. This reflects the observation that for women delivering at home without ready access to emergency obstetrical care, support from traditional birth attendants proved inadequate to substantially reduce risk of death for the mother or newborn. Considerable effort has been expended in many settings to help ensure that women give birth with the assistance of a qualified health worker, generally in a health facility.
However, in many instances there has not been equal attention given to the actual substance of the care provided or the necessary supports to enable health workers to provide adequate care. In recent years, there has been increasing attention in program work to the quality and content of maternal-newborn services, particularly around the time of birth. This is reflected in current work at the World Health Organization on improving quality of maternal-newborn health care.
Part of what is implied in the “skilled birth attendance” strategy is that assisting in childbirth does not necessarily require a physician. Many interventions related to maternal-newborn health can be competently delivered by categories of health workers with comparatively modest training.
Accordingly, certain maternal-newborn services can be provided by categories of health workers labelled as “community health workers” (CHWs). This is a broad designation that includes:
- Health auxiliaries with training sometimes approaching that of registered nurses
- Paid full-time workers with several months of basic training
- Non-salaried but financially “incentivized” workers, typically working less than full-time
- Volunteers providing services on a periodic or intermittent basis with little or no financial incentives
In some settings, there is more than one tier of CHWs.
When robustly supported (as they can be under project conditions), non-salaried and volunteer CHWs have been demonstrated as effective for various maternal- and newborn-related services. There are fewer examples of such work being effectively delivered at national scale, under non-project conditions. A very important but frequently neglected factor is the supports needed for effective programs.
The issue is not so much,
- can CHWs be effective for a particular service?
But rather,
- what supports are necessary for effectiveness?
And,
- are such supports feasible at scale under normal, non-project conditions?
Program efforts commonly address health worker knowledge and skills. This is typically done primarily by training. Motivation is less often given focused attention. Certainly, some aspects of performance can be positively affected by financial incentives, although such incentives can also have unintended negative consequences. However, motivation is more than just a matter of incentives.
In many settings, legitimate and illegitimate absences from work significantly undermine reliable access to services. This can be a consequence, for example, of frequent off-site trainings. There are also many settings where health workers are either frequently away from their posts without authorization or where they offer services only for very limited periods of time each day.
Even when health workers are at their posts, their practices are affected not only by material they may have been exposed to in training but also by other influences on what they consider appropriate care. For example, health workers may be well aware of what treatments are recommended or authorized in national treatment guidelines but may — for any number of reasons — prefer to offer treatments not reflected in official protocols. For program efforts to be effective in ensuring availability of appropriate care, they need to respond to the actual factors influencing health worker practices.
Supervision is often mentioned as an important performance factor in health worker practices. Certainly under project conditions, there are numerous examples of “supportive technical supervision” or “mentoring” that appear to have made a positive contribution to quality of care. There are, however, far fewer examples of this function being effectively delivered under non-project conditions. Health-facility-level quality improvement efforts can serve a somewhat similar function, whereby groups of health staff work collectively to improve performance, holding each other accountable. | https://www.healthynewbornnetwork.org/issue/human-resources/ |
In the set of commentaries on liquidity entitled “The continuing significance of social structure in liquid modernity,” three sets of authors set out to examine the relationship between liquidity and structure, value, and distinction. In doing so, they attempt to marry theories which argue against sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s central thesis that so...
Understanding how globalization affects consumers is a key concern of international marketing research. Consumer culture theory (CCT) studies contribute to this stream of research by critically examining how globalization affects consumers under different cultural conditions. We offer a systematic narrative synthesis of 30 years of CCT globalizatio...
We explore emerging dynamics of social status and distinction in liquid consumption. The new logic of distinction is having the flexibility to embrace and adopt new identity positions, projects, and possibilities and the ability to attract attention. The importance of flexibility and attention as resources emerged from the social sciences literatur...
This chapter examines the phenomenon of global mobilities from a consumer culture theory perspective, focusing especially on the cross-border movements of people. Human global mobilities take many forms, from economic and political migration, through pro- fessional and educational sojourning and expatriation, short-term business and leisure interna...
Culturally oriented consumer research has predominantly been framed by two ideal types of reflexivity, which we characterize as existential and critical reflexiv-ity. Drawing from our research on divorced women who have been displaced from their domestically oriented, middle-class lifestyles, we develop an alternative con-ceptualization-reactive re...
This article introduces a new dimension of consumption as liquid or solid. Liquid consumption is defined as ephemeral, access based, and dematerialized, while solid consumption is defined as enduring, ownership based, and material. Liquid and solid consumption are conceptualized as existing on a spectrum, with four conditions leading to consumption...
The access economy is rising in importance in the marketplace. In this conceptual article, we chronicle access practices in market and nonmarket economies. In nonmarket economic systems, access is gained via social exchange and primarily takes the form of sharing. That is, sharing is non-market-mediated access. In the contemporary market economy, e...
Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place, is becoming increasingly popular, yet it is not well theorized. This study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing, specifically the consumer-object, consumer-consumer, and consumer-marketer re...
This study investigates consumers’ relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary global nomadism. Prior research argues that consumers form enduring and strong attachments to possessions because of their centrality to identity projects. This role is heightened in life transitions including cross-border movements as possessions anchor...
Purpose – The brand management literature argues that the standardization of branding strategy across global markets leads to consistent and well-defined brand meaning. The paper aims to challenge this thesis by empirically examining whether and how global brands travel with consumers. The paper studies how consumers create brand meanings at home a...
While commercial media are increasingly attended to in multitasking contexts, advertising research is dominated by sequential marketing communication models where the consumer is a passive receiver of one type of media at a time. This study examine's media multitasking behaviors and experiences among young consumers. Media multitasking is the pract...
This study addresses the role of food in boundary crossing and maintenance processes in the context of short‐term mobility. We utilize an identity and practice theory approach to understand the ways travelers relate to food in the encounter with the cultural different Other. The study was conducted through interviews with 28 American consumers afte...
Please note that gray areas reflect artwork that has been intentionally removed. The substantive content of the ar-ticle appears as originally published.
This study examines the role of consumer technology paradoxes within the context of self-service technology and the routes by which these paradoxes influence customer satisfaction evaluation. Analysis of survey data from online banking customers indicates that three paradoxes operate in this context: control/chaos, fulfill needs/create needs, and f...
Some successful innovations, such as the microwave oven and the dishwasher, were initially slow to achieve consumer acceptance. When consumers resist adopting an innovation because it requires them to alter established habits, the innovation is called a resistant innovation. The authors use a case study involving the diffusion of screwcap wine clos...
While cross-cultural geographical mobility is considered as one of the main social conditions of contemporary times, social sciences research in mobility has examined mainly leisure mobility or mobility of sedentary populations (e.g., sojourners). This article studies a group of contemporary nomads, transnational mobile professionals (TMPs)—a globa...
Through an ethnography of shopping that takes place in five thrift stores in a US midwestern town, the authors examine the role of thrift in a shopping process that is both economic and hedonic—‘thrift shopping’. Taking a dialectical perspective on the study of shopping (Sherry, 1990), Miller's (1998) findings on the role of thrift are extended by...
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nebraska--Lincoln, 2004. Includes bibliographical references. | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fleura-Bardhi |
What Type of Learner Are You?
The experience of trying to engage a child to sit still and focus on the task in front of them can often be likened to herding cats. The problem is what draws one in may bore another to the point where they simply lose all interest in a topic. A key aspect of this is the variety of learning styles that exist. While there is little advantage of one particular style over the other, and often children fall into multiple categories, the value of engaging a child in their learning experience cannot be understated, and recognising their learning style is fundamental to this. These learning styles can broadly be categorized in visual, kinaesthetic, auditory, and learning via reading and writing.
The key signs of a visual learner are enjoying activities such as arts, reading books filled with illustrations or maps, being good at recalling people and places, and taking a keen interest in the world around them. The best way to engage a visual learner is to provide them with examples of the task they are given, so they can observe what should be done. Using multiple colours while creating study notes, as well as creating flash cards, mind maps and a heavy use of diagrams to aid in studying can be highly effective.
Auditory learners often enjoy music and excel at following verbal instructions. They are often talkative, wait until the instructions have been completed before starting the task, and often ask many questions while performing the said task. Here, as always, communication is key. Talking through problems, as well as discussing any difficulties the child may be having are vital, and making up rhymes, songs, or mnemonics while revising can be incredibly useful.
Kinaesthetic learners study best by the act of doing whatever they are meant to be learning. These learners often enjoy sports, hands on activities, and would much rather jump straight into the task than sit still. For these learners, the use of engaging techniques such as drawing or study games, practice tests, or even the use of stress balls can help them focus while learning.
People that learn best by reading/writing often take notes while working, enjoy reading books and stories, remember what they have read, often enjoy working alone in quiet spaces, and perform well if allowed to record notes on what they are meant to do. If a child falls into these categories, writing out notes by hand, using checklists to guide study, and organising study notes using headings and lists is often found to be most useful.
Children may fall into any, or multiple of these categories, and identifying which one they belong to can sometimes be a challenging task especially in a school environment, where it is difficult to engage all four different styles at once. Often children will struggle to stay engaged in their learning and feel that they are not good at something simply because they cannot enjoy the tasks. One-on-one tuition offers a solution to this problem, where the tutor can specifically engage the child in their own style of learning, consequently giving them confidence in their own abilities, which can help them excel academically.
At Grace Simpkins Personal Tutors, our tutors are experienced in recognising whichever learning style the child may respond best to, and are provided with a wide variety of learning tools to engage every student in their learning to help them discover their full potential. | https://gracesimpkins.com.au/blog/what-type-of-learner-are-you/ |
Nine and a half years. That’s the average length of time it takes to reach accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder, according to a study by Bipolar UK.
Research also suggests that people with severe mental illness – including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia – are more likely to have a physical health condition on top of their mental illness.
My own story is no exception.
I’ve had countless appointments over the years with a variety of health professionals from GPs to psychiatrists and psychologists.
My health record is a treasure trove of information on the symptoms I experience, all the treatments and medications I’ve tried and how good my physical health is. All in all, these records paint a picture of what has helped and – more importantly – what didn’t.
Could my health data help researchers change the future stories of people like me?
Translating health record data into change
The Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) is a computer system which enables researchers to analyse anonymised information from electronic clinical records system. The system was carefully designed to be safe and secure and there are safeguards in place to ensure that the personal details of patients cannot be accessed by researchers who use it.
There isn’t a blood test that can tell if someone has bipolar disorder, or a brain scan to diagnose schizophrenia. Doctors currently rely on accounts from patients and monitor their response to medications and other treatments.
But written health records are much harder to use in research at scale – and researchers need to look at data from larger numbers of people for the best results.
Bridging the gap between physical and mental health
To tackle this issue, a team of researchers at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust developed an algorithm that can automatically read, extract and analyse information from anonymised health records. They initially trained the algorithm by manually analysing records and annotating them, identifying 21 physical health conditions in the records.
Using the algorithm, the team found that 40% of the more than 17,500 people studied had at least one other condition, and 20% had two or more.
The research also showed that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia had higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure.
Finding links between physical and mental health means that not only can doctors look out for the conditions that are most likely to develop, but scientists can also start to understand why.
Hopes for the future
I’m now almost 30. I was diagnosed with bipolar a couple of years ago and started on medication that has quite honestly changed my life.
Diagnosing bipolar disorder is hard – I really struggled to understand what I was experiencing and to put it into words – but something must change. And the link between having bipolar disorder and being more likely to have other physical illnesses alongside it concerns me.
That’s why I want researchers to be able to access my health record data made anonymous in a safe and secure way. If the data in my health records can help, then I want to play a role in helping scientists to find the answers that we so desperately need.
From TREs to the BRIAN app – our 2022 Data Access and Discovery webinars in review
8 December 2022
At the start of the year we launched our new bi-monthly Data Access and Discovery webinar series, replacing our previous monthly Gateway Open-Door sessions. The change enabled us to expand our...
HDR UK Scientific Conference: Meet our marketplace
2 December 2022
Check out a sneak preview of the partners and HDR UK programmes who will be exhibiting at our virtual marketplace expo for HDR UK’s Scientific Conference on 14 December.
Findings from health data research highlight opportunities for better healthcare planning and clinical management for patients with multimorbidity
1 December 2022
A population-study, enabled by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and part-funded by the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre, provides the data and resources to help improve health and care... | https://www.hdruk.org/news/why-i-want-researchers-to-study-my-mental-health-data/ |
Joey Irving is one of the greatest funk/soul/R&B artists to come out of the Rockford area. Over the course of his career, two major record labels and four independents signed Joey, including Vincent Records. Although Joey toured with Wilson Pickett and gained much popularity, especially in Europe, much of his music has still not been heard. When you listen to Joey’s music, his astounding falsetto transports you to the mid-’70s. Joey is still a proud Vincent Records artist.
Vincent Records has re-released a 45RPM vinyl record of Joey’s songs “Can You Handle Me Girl/What Happened to the Love We Knew.” Visit our store to purchase one of the records. | http://vincentrecords.com/artists/joey-irving/ |
Cheskin, Ammon Matthias (2013) Identity, memory, temporality and discourse: the evolving discursive positions of Latvia's Russian-speakers. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
This thesis examines how discourses are utilised by media and political elites to construct, propagate, and alter national and ethnic identities. It uses Latvia as a case study, focusing on the construction of ‘Russian-speaking’ identity from the late Soviet period to the present. A central aim of this research is to study how discursive constructions of identity are created, and to what extent media and politicians are able to influence such constructions.
In order to meaningfully assess the extent of multiple influences over discursive production and consumption this research employs a triangulated approach, using data from focus groups, elite interviews with Latvian politicians, survey data, and discourse analysis of the Latvian press. This has allowed for a fuller examination and assessment of top-down and bottom-up influences and pressures on identity creation and how these are interrelated.
Previously conducted research on ethnopolitical identities in Latvia has revealed how collective memories, interpretations of the Soviet past, post-Soviet state-building policies, and issues surrounding language usage are all heavily politicised and used to demarcate the boundaries between the ‘core nation’ (Latvians) on the one hand, and ‘Russian-speakers’ on the other. Accordingly, this research explores how the constructions of these positions are negotiated, propagated, intensified, or mitigated through discursive practices, as manifested in media, political, or personal discourses.
This research is concerned with the temporally contingent nature of discourses and as such, considers multiple eras, rather than a single de-contextualised and static time period, to investigate how discourses have evolved in the Latvian context. By comparing discursive productions from the late Soviet period with those of the present, it has been possible to examine how certain discursive positions have become meaningfully embedded within popularly conceived notions of identity. It has also facilitated a study of discursive strategies by people who attempt to represent Russian-speakers in the media and political spaces. This research argues that discourses are firmly rooted in the past, even if their contemporary form differs greatly from that of the past. | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4020/ |
The Municipal Development Plan (MDP) serves as the main framework for planning and development decisions in Innisfail. The plan is a statutory document, meaning it has been adopted by Town Council through bylaw.
It is based on a creative consensus surrounding the social, cultural, economic, built and natural environment. The MDP strategically addresses the community’s immediate needs while at the same time develops long-term goals for future development and growth of the community.
The Intermunicipal Development Plan (IDP) promotes a cooperative approach to managing future growth and development in the area around the town.
The IDP serves as a tool for coordinating future land uses and development between the two municipalities. It also establishes a framework for the two municipalities to work together to address issues of mutual concern.
An Area Structure Plan (ASP) proposes a sequence of development for a select area of the town. It addresses the future land uses, the density of population, and the general location of transportation and public utilities. The plan is a statutory document that must be passed by bylaw.
In 2012 the Town completed the Downtown Innisfail Area Redevelopment Plan. This serves as a guide for future changes the community would like to see in the central commercial area. | http://innisfail.ca/services-departments/planning-development/development-plans |
AGE DISTRIBUTION. When drawn as a "population pyramid," age distribution can hint at patterns of growth. A top heavy pyramid, like the one for Grant County, North Dakota, suggests negative population growth that might be due to any number of factors, including high death rates, low birth rates, and increased emigration from the area. A bottom heavy pyramid, like the one drawn for Orange ...
www.thoughtco.com/us-population-through-history-1435268
The first decennial census in the United States in 1790 showed a population of just under four million people. In 2019, the U.S. population is at more than 330 million. Even though in 2008, there was an almost one percent increase in the birth rate compared to the years before it, it was seen as a post-recession baby boom.
wonder.cdc.gov/population.html
2014 - 2060 Population Projections: By Year, Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity, produced by the Census Bureau in 2014. Data Request More information; 2014 - 2060 Population Changes by Race - Birth, Death, Migration Projections: By Year, Age, Sex, and Race, produced by the Census Bureau in 2014. Data Request More information; 2014 - 2060 Population Changes by Ethnicity - Birth, Death, Migration ...
www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/aging/1/demographics
View more Demographic Changes and Aging Population The U.S. population is aging. Today, there are more than 46 million older adults age 65 and older living in the U.S.; by 2050, that number is expected to grow to almost 90 million.Between 2020 and 2030 alone, the time the last of the baby boom cohorts reach age 65, the number of older adults is projected to increase by almost 18 million.
enviroatlas.epa.gov/.../pdf/Supplemental/PercentPopulationOver70YearsOld.pdf
2010 TIGER/Shapefile boundary data with the age data found in US Census 2010 Summary File 1 Population Subjects Summarized to the Block Level (Table P12: Sex by Age). For percent population over 70 years of age, males and females were added together, and this figure was divided by the total population in the block group.
statisticalatlas.com/United-States/Race-and-Ethnicity
Race and Ethnicity by Place in the United States There are 29,322 places in the United States. This section compares the 50 most populous of those to each other and the United States. The least populous of the compared places has a population of 383,899.
www.childtrends.org/indicators/number-of-children
The number of children under age 18 in the United States increased from 47.3 million in 1950 to 74.1 million in 2010, before declining slightly to 73.7 million in 2012. Since 2012, the number of children has remained between 73.6 and 73.7 million, and is projected to increase to 74.1 million by 2020.
www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/3-ways-that-the-u-s-population-will-change-over...
2. The population will get older. The U.S. is getting older and it’s going to keep getting older.. Today, there are over 74.1 million people under age 18 in the U.S. country.
www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-individuals-who-voted-in-thousands...
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400 Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street ...
www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups
By contrast, the median age of Christian adults is 49, up from 46 in 2007. One-in-five Christians (21%) have reached the traditional retirement age of 65, compared with just 9% of the religiously unaffiliated, 5% of Muslims and 4% of Hindus. Jews have a median age of 50, the same as in 2007 and on par with Catholics and Protestants as a whole. | https://www.reference.com/web?q=us%20population%20by%20age&qo=pagination&o=600605&l=dir&sga=1&qsrc=998&page=5 |
Aging comes with many challenges. The loss of independence is one potential part of the process, as are diminished physical ability and age discrimination. The term senescence refers to the aging process, including biological, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual changes. This section discusses some of the challenges we encounter during this process.
As already observed, many older adults remain highly self-sufficient. Others require more care. Because the elderly typically no longer hold jobs, finances can be a challenge. And due to cultural misconceptions, older people can be targets of ridicule and stereotypes. The elderly face many challenges in later life, but they do not have to enter old age without dignity.
For many people in the United States, growing older once meant living with less income. In 1960, almost 35 percent of the elderly existed on poverty-level incomes. A generation ago, the nation’s oldest populations had the highest risk of living in poverty.
At the start of the 21st century, the older population was putting an end to that trend. Among people over 65, the poverty rate fell from 30 percent in 1967 to 9.7 percent in 2008, well below the national average of 13.2 percent (U.S. Census Bureau 2009). However, with the subsequent recession, which severely reduced the retirement savings of many while taxing public support systems, how are the elderly affected? According to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, the national poverty rate among the elderly had risen to 14 percent by 2010 (Urban Institute and Kaiser Commission 2010).
Before the recession hit, what had changed to cause a reduction in poverty among the elderly? What social patterns contributed to the shift? For several decades, a greater number of women joined the workforce. More married couples earned double incomes during their working years and saved more money for their retirement. Private employers and governments began offering better retirement programs. By 1990, senior citizens reported earning 36 percent more income on average than they did in 1980; that was five times the rate of increase for people under age 35 (U.S. Census Bureau 2009).
In addition, many people were gaining access to better health care. New trends encouraged people to live more healthful lifestyles, placing an emphasis on exercise and nutrition. There was also greater access to information about the health risks of behaviors such as cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug use. Because they were healthier, many older people continue to work past the typical retirement age, providing more opportunity to save for retirement. Will these patterns return once the recession ends? Sociologists will be watching to see. In the meantime, they are realizing the immediate impact of the recession on elderly poverty.
Notification Switch
Would you like to follow the 'Introduction to sociology' conversation and receive update notifications? | https://www.jobilize.com/online/course/13-3-challenges-facing-the-elderly-by-openstax |
In aircraft applications, the operating speed of an unshrouded propeller is limited since tip speeds approach the sound barrier at lower speeds than an equivalent ducted fan. The most common ducted fan arrangement used in full-sized aircraft is a turbofan engine, where the power to turn the fan is provided by a gas turbine. High bypass ratio turbofan engines are used on nearly all civilian airliners, while military fighters usually make use of the better high-speed performance of a low bypass ratio turbofan with a smaller fan diameter. However, a ducted fan may be powered by any source of shaft power such as a reciprocating engine, Wankel engine, or electric motor. A kind of ducted fan, known as a fantail or by the trademark name Fenestron, is also used to replace tail rotors on helicopters.
Ducted fans are favored in VTOL aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, and other low-speed designs such as hovercraft for their higher thrust-to-weight ratio.
In some cases, a shrouded rotor can be 94% more efficient than an open rotor. The improved performance is mainly because the outward flow is less contracted and thus carries more kinetic energy.
Among model aircraft hobbyists, the ducted fan is popular with builders of high-performance radio controlled model aircraft. Internal-combustion glow engines combined with ducted-fan units were the first achievable means of modeling a scaled-size jet aircraft. Despite the introduction of model-scale turbojet engines, electric-powered ducted fans remain popular on smaller, lower-cost model aircraft. Some electric-powered ducted fan airplanes can reach speeds of more than 320km/h (200mph).
Most types of fans used in computers contain a duct integrated into the fan assembly; the duct is also used for mechanically mounting the fan to other components. | http://www.popflock.com/learn?s=Ducted_fan |
Several parts of the engine casing of a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 plane crashed into a residential area on the outskirts of Denver on Saturday after it exploded.
The plane landed safely and no one was injured, News.ro reports.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced that the plane returned to Denver International Airport after having a major engine problem right shortly after takeoff. The aircraft was destined for Honolulu.
United Airlines said 231 passengers and ten crew members were on the plane. All passengers were given seats on the next flight to Hawaii.
Debris from a United Airlines plane rained down on a Denver neighbourhood on Saturday after its engine suffered a catastrophic failure.
Read more about it here: https://t.co/YEnW6qD7sv pic.twitter.com/oDREAVBOUU
— CTV News (@CTVNews) February 21, 2021
Images of circular pieces of the carcass and other fragments that fell in a residential area about 40 miles north of Denver have appeared on social media.
Videos were also posted on Twitter, made both from the plane and from ground level.
The passengers said the plane was close to cruising altitude and the commander of the aircraft was making an announcement when a loud explosion occurred, accompanied by a bright light.
“The plane started to shake violently, we lost altitude and the plane started to go down. At first, I thought it was over. We thought we were collapsing. ” said David Delucia.
BREAKING: Explosion in plane over Denver, giant metal falls from sky in Broomfield in a yard from this aircraft pic.twitter.com/J60Np0wEfG
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) February 20, 2021
He and his wife took out their wallets with their driver’s licenses and put them in their pockets.
“If we collapsed, we could be identified.”, Delucia explained.
John Cox, an aviation safety expert, said that although the appearance of a burning engine is frightening, most of these incidents do not result in loss of life. | https://www.worldin.news/73452/2021/02/moments-of-horror-for-the-passengers-of-an-airplane-after-its-engine-exploded-during-the-flight.html |
Steven became a member of the Rampage production team during 2001 with his technical understanding of mechanical things he was quickly able to pick up new skills required to produce carnival costumes of great stature and then excelled in the areas of frame building and wire bending.
He is highly motivated and a committed person who decided to pursue his career as a full-time artist working in the field of carnival arts in 1999. He regularly shares his skills with students, adult learners, schools and community groups who can use his unique skill to enhance their own art forms. This has taken him all over the world to deliver a wide range of workshops and activities including Denmark, Europe, Hamburg reconstructing costumes setting up exhibitions and delivering workshops to teachers and their local creative groups.
Back in 2009 Steven had the opportunity to work in Trinidad with international artist Stephen Derek building a costume that crossed the Savanna one of the most famous carnival stage in the world.
Steven has worked alongside many well-known and famous artists in the carnival world, community groups and carnival bands gaining great success and winning many awards.
His passion for Carnival and the celebratory arts sees these art forms as the key to enhancing community spirit covering all abilities age’s backgrounds and genders. | https://carnivalinabox.co.uk/carnival/featured-carnival-artists/steven-hoyte/ |
Programme OverviewDuration: 2 Years | Programme Code: 020304
M. Tech. VLSI Design programme aims to impart knowledge of VLSI system design covering algorithms, hardware description languages, system architectures, physical designs, verification techniques, simulation & synthesis, low power design techniques etc. The recent advancements in VLSI design have enabled most of the systems to become compact & reliable and to deliver data at high speed. The students will get an opportunity to participate in projects related to design of low power VLSI systems, optimization of digital circuits, and large area flexible electronics.
Programme Educational Objectives
- The graduates will become professionals equipped with the knowledge of VLSI/nanometer scale IC and ASIC design methodologies.
- The graduates will be exposed to the complexities and design methodologies of current and advanced IC design technologies.
- The graduates will work and communicate effectively in inter-disciplinary environment, either independently or in a team, and demonstrate leadership qualities.
- The graduates will engage in life-long learning and professional development through self-study, continuing education or professional and doctoral level studies.
Programme OutcomesUpon completion of the M. Tech. VLSI Design (VLSI) programme, students will be able to:
- Apply advanced level knowledge, techniques, skills and modern tools of VLSI Design.
- Understand the complexities and design methodologies of current and advanced IC design technologies.
- Function on multidisciplinary teams, working cooperatively, respectfully, creatively and responsibly as a member of a team.
- Identify, formulate, and solve VLSI design problems using advanced level manufacturing techniques.
- Communicate effectively by oral, written, computing and graphical means.
- Understand the impact of VLSI design solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context.
- Recognize the need to engage in lifelong learning through continuing education and research.
- Demonstrate knowledge of contemporary issues in the area of VLSI design.
- Manage projects related to VLSI design in multidisciplinary environments.
Programme Highlights
Distinctive academic curriculum, qualified and competent faculty members, transfer of knowledge through scholarly activities, inter-disciplinary project based learning, state-of-the-art laboratories, exceptional computing facilities, industry interaction, semester abroad opportunities.
Major areas that will be covered under this Programme:
Advanced Semiconductor Devices, Analog and Digital IC Design, VLSI Digital Signal Processing, ASIC Design, VLSI Design Verification and Testing, Computer Aided Design for VLSI
Career Avenues
The employment and career opportunities exist in leading core companies manufacturing ICs, R & D organizations involving VLSI Design & device modeling and IC Foundries.
Entry Requirements
BE/B. Tech or equivalent in Electrical / Electronics / EEE / ECE / EI or M.Sc. in Physics/Electronics or in relevant discipline.In addition, applicants will also have to successfully complete a Goenka Aptitude Test for Admission (GATA) and a personal interview. | https://www.gdgoenkauniversity.com/school-of-engineering/m-tech-vlsi-design/ |
Ligand-based virtual screening and molecular docking studies to identify the critical chemical features of potent cathepsin D inhibitors.
Cathepsin D is a major component of lysosomes and plays a major role in catabolism and degenerative diseases. The quantitative structure-activity relationship study was used to explore the critical chemical features of cathepsin D inhibitors. Top 10 hypotheses were built based on 36 known cathepsin D inhibitors using HypoGen/Discovery Studio v2.5. The best hypothesis Hypo1 consists of three hydrophobic, one hydrogen bond acceptor lipid, and one hydrogen bond acceptor features. The selected Hypo1 model was cross-validated using Fischer's randomization method to identify the strong correlation between experimental and predicted activity value as well as the test set and decoy sets used to validate its predictability. Moreover, the best hypothesis was used as a 3D query in virtual screening of Scaffold database. Subsequently, the screened hit molecules were filtered by applying Lipinski's rule of five, absorption, distribution, metabolism, and toxicity, and molecular docking studies. Finally, 49 compounds were obtained as potent cathepsin D inhibitors based on the consensus scoring values, critical interactions with protein active site residues, and predicted activity values. Thus, we suggest that the application of Hypo1 could assist in the selection of potent cathepsin D leads from various databases. Hence, this model was used as a valuable tool to design new candidate for cathepsin D inhibitors.
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Council carries out a range of works, many of which are achieved with a variety of contract services. These may range from professional consultancies through trade based construction type contract services and service agreements and contracts for ongoing service delivery.
All works carried out through Council are subject to the requirements of the Work Health Safety Act and Regulations (SA) 2012. Council participates in a Local Government Insurance Scheme which requires a level of audit-able documentation to ensure risks to both Council, and organisations providing contracted services, are adequately mitigated and appropriately allocated.
Council maintains a register of contractors who have provided the necessary documentation satisfying basic requirements under the WHS Act and in accordance with relevant Council Policys
All Contractors are required to undergo a Council Work Health Safety Induction covering basic issues pertinent to working for Council including a site induction. This may be extended to incorporate site specific hazards that require particular mitigation practices, subject to the site and other concurrent activities.
The Contractor General Induction Form is required to be completed to confirm a range of standard information is in place and a copy of current documents (including relevant licences) are to be supplied to Council before works commence.
Subject to services being contracted, additional documents may be required. If the services involve high risk activities as defined under the WHS Act Section 291, a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) will be required that adequately mitigates the known hazards.
For hazards otherwise identifiable in reviewing the work to be carried out, organisations should be able to provide as a minimum, other documentation such as a Job Safety Analysis (JSA), a Safe Work Practice or Procedure (SWP) and Safety Data Sheets for chemical products intended for use in the contracted works. The terminology for these documents may be different such as JSEA or SOP however the intent is that hazards are identified; the risks evaluated, and mitigation measures referencing the Hierarchy of Control are implemented to ensure a safe work place for workers and general public is achieved.
For more complex or hazardous works, contractors may be required to detail how their work practices meet the requirements of applicable Australian Standards or the Codes of Practice which have been developed to support the WHS Act and Regulations (SA) 2012 with advice on how to meet the various requirements. | https://www.goyder.sa.gov.au/services/preferred-contractors |
Laura Waslo is passionate about the guitar, but in 2009, chronic widespread pain prevented her from playing.
"It was a burning pain in my legs and feet, and then also my feet, which were getting red and swollen all the time," said Waslo.
Several doctors told Waslo it was nerve damage from her diabetes, but no one could make the pain go away. That's until she met Dr. Anne Louise Oaklander of Massachusetts General Hospital, who diagnosed Waslo with autoimmune neuropathy.
"This is a particular type of widespread nerve damage that is different from the diabetic neuropathy," said Oaklander.
Although it's been diagnosed in adults, Oaklander's study of 41 patients found it also occurs in those under 21.
"Since no one knew what the cause of their pain and other symptoms were, there were no effective treatments," said Oaklander.
In addition to chronic pain, Waslo experienced insomnia, blood pressure swings, and sometimes passed out when she stood up.
Through skin biopsies, and heart and blood pressure tests, doctors discovered neuropathy in younger patients.
"We were seeing abnormal skin biopsy test results or abnormal autonomic function test results. These are things that previously had not been described in young patients," said Dr. Max Klein with Massachusetts General Hospital.
Waslo's pain level dropped with steroid treatment followed by transfusion therapy.
"I feel great now. My symptoms pretty much disappeared," said Waslo.
Other symptoms of autoimmune neuropathy include numbness, tingling and decreased reflexes. Some patients say their widespread chronic pain was brought on by an earlier illness, infection or injury. | https://abc7.com/archive/9246273/ |
At the beginning of January, Marcella Weichselbraun started her job as Store Manager of the Draupark INTERSPAR Hypermarket in Villach. At just 24, she is the youngest INTERSPAR Store Manager in Austria, showing that young SPAR and INTERSPAR employees have countless opportunities for a successful career after completing a training programme at SPAR.
Marcella first entered the retail market seven years ago as a trainee in an INTERSPAR Hypermarket in her hometown, Lienz. She completed her training as a retail merchant with great success, along with an office administrator training programme. Most recently, she worked as Regional Manager of the INTERSPAR Hypermarket in the Atrio shopping centre in Villach. As part of the INTERSPAR development programme for young employees, Marcella completed numerous additional training courses, including the SPAR Champion training programme.
“All of these seminars and courses have strengthened my self-confidence and organisational and leadership skills. This has really helped me in my daily contact with my employees,” she said.
After having finished their training, young SPAR and INTERSPAR employees have countless opportunities for a successful career. Many of today’s INTERSPAR Store Managers and Regional Managers have completed their training as retail merchants at SPAR.
Those interested in following a SPAR training programme and joining the SPAR family can apply online on SPAR Austria’s job portal. | http://spar-international.com/news/spar-austria-welcomes-its-youngest-interspar-store-manager/ |
Gastronomy, Languages, Art and Discovery
European gastronomy, as well as the cultural heritage to which it belongs, is a complex topic that cuts across many fields. It has geological and historical roots in specific territories, helps to define a nation, contributes to the economic development of a region and is the reason for artistic creations. Therefore, this is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to the main disciplines of the restoration schools involved.
The GLAD project brings together six restoration schools with similar structures, students, curricula and goals. All schools, if not all teachers, have some experience in Erasmus+ and international projects and this particular project forms part of each school's European Development Plan and its internationalization strategy.
We all share the same commitments: preparing students for the job market, broadening their horizons, adding a European dimension to their personal and professional lives. We want to help them improve their professional, analytical, linguistic, computing, cultural and social skills, because this will help them to enter the job market and become full citizens. As all schools are professional, work-based learning will be the main learning approach, but we will also address gastronomy in other dimensions/disciplinary areas: History, Geography, Economics, Arts, Languages. Students will gain a better insight into their country's gastronomic culture and learn from their peers about other cuisines. They will use English to communicate with European colleagues and develop self-confidence and autonomy.
The project will include all catering departments in each school, even if not all students can participate in international mobility. About 150 to 200 students aged 15 to 19 will actively participate in the tasks that will be defined over the course of the two-year project and about 70 of them, with some kind of difficulty, facing social, economic obstacles or cultural differences. Overcoming exclusion is one of our priorities and we hope that, working with essential skills and soft skills , we will be able to guide students who have fewer opportunities, improving their ability to interact in society and their employability. The project will involve a wide range of activities and will use many digital tools, including eTwinning and Twinspace , to maximize the number of participants. Students from other departments will also participate when the school hosts international meetings.
Throughout the project, students will have to carry out common tasks related to the development of a menu. They will produce recipes, presentations, analyzes that will be included in a cookbook, to be edited at the end of the project. All productions will also be available on the Erasmus+ Project's Twinspace and Results Platform. Mobilities will also be organized in each school and the programs will always include a special time for students to work together in the restaurant or in the kitchen. Participants will visit local food and wine producers (to emphasize links with the territory's economy), restaurants or hotels (for professional purposes), museums or places of interest to see the link between gastronomy and other areas of the curriculum, such as Arts or History. All partner schools cooperated and communicated efficiently in the application process, sharing responsibilities according to the strengths and desires of each school. Contacts by videoconference and email or via WhatsApp group will be regular. We plan a joint team building event at the beginning of the project, during which we will all share a professional development experience.
The project will have a positive impact on the well-being and professional skills of students and teachers. It will help to increase motivation and we believe it can have a positive impact on the school climate. A cookbook will be created and each school will have paper copies that can be used in the future to create European menus or as a resource in English classes. In the Twinspace, all published materials will be available for all partners after the end of the project. Some schools may decide to continue working together and the experience gained in this project will contribute to future partnerships. Outreach activities will ensure that as many students as possible can benefit from the project. This project, supported by the Erasmus+ program, ultimately plays a key role in the personal and professional fulfillment of students and teachers and in the schools' internationalization strategies.
Partner institutions: | https://www.epsm.pt/en/project-glad |
Tara (Caesalpinia spinosa Molina Kuntz) is a native forest plant of the Andes, and occurs in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and northern Chile . In Bolivia it grows naturally in the dry valleys of the Andes (Interandean Valles) at 1000 - 3000 m. Its content in tannins, gallic acid and other compounds afford it medicinal, food and industrial properties . Since 2005, a number of projects with international aid funding have promoted the cultivation of tara in Bolivia , and the nursery production of tara plantlets has becomean important activity. Currently, several public and private nurseries in the Cochabamba Valleys supply young tara plants to the area’s growers and those beyond . However, while tara was thought to be affected by few diseases and pests (with the exception of powdery mildew in some areas) , disease has recently become a problem, with both nursery and plantation plants affected . One of those causing problems in the Cochabamba Valley and other areas of Bolivia is wilting. This disease is associated with significant field losses. Indeed, in a five year-old plantation at La Aguada (Valle Grande, Dept. of Santa Cruz, Bolivia), incidence rates of 26% and 45% were recorded in two plots in 2012 .
Fusarium is among the top 10 crop-affecting fungal genera in the world , with different species affecting different crops . The genus has also been associated with wilting in tara, although the causal species has remained unknown . The candidate specie, Fusarium oxysporum Schlechtis, a soil pathogen causes vascular wilting in a wide range of plants . The classic symptoms include vascular discoloration, dwarfism, defoliation and death . It can cause production problems at nurseries, but plantlets may be asymptomatic when shipped out. The propagules of F. oxysporum can survive in the soil for long periods in the absence of a host . When young field plants are infected, death may occur after a few years. This type of epiphytic fungus is characterised as monocyclic . A reliable estimate of disease intensity (incidence plus severity) is vital if it is to be managed, and the spatial distribution of the disease needs to be modelled for surveillance procedures to be developed . The aim of the present work was to identify the causal species of wiltdisease in tara, and to assess the incidence of the disease among nursery plants.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Area
The present work was performed at the nursery of the Escuela de Ciencias Forestales (ESFOR; the School of Forestry Science), Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas y Pecuarias “Martin Cárdenas” at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Cochabamba, Bolivia. The ESFOR nursery lies at 17˚27'S and 66˚09'W, and at an altitude of 2750 m, in the Tunari National Park in the Cercado Province within the Dept. of Cochabamba. The climate of the area is dry and mild; the mean minimum temperature is 10˚C, the mean maximum is 30˚C, and the mean rainfall is 450 mm.
2.2. Identification of the Causal Agent of Wilting in Tara
Samples of tara plantlets aged 4 months were collected in a random fashion from nursery production beds; this sampling thus included plants that were apparently healthy (Figure 1, right) and that showed wilting (Figure 1, left) (Figure 1). In the laboratory, the roots were washed under running water to remove the soil, and then rinsed in sterile, distilled water (Figure 1(b)). Root sections (0.5 cm long) were then taken, disinfected in 70% alcohol, rinsed again in sterile, distilled water, and placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) (Liofilchem s.r.l. Bacteriology Products) containing streptomycin (two replicates per sample). They were then incubated for 72 h at 24˚C under 24 h periods of light/dark/light. Fungal identification was performed by light microscopy; mycelium samples were mounted in lactophenol with methylene blue, and identifications made using the keys of Leslie and Summerell and Summerell, Salleh and Leslie .
2.3. Determination of Incidence in Nurseries
In September 2010, and again in October 2013, three experimental plots were established in taraplantlet production beds containing a peat/black/earth-silt (1:2:1) substrate. The latter had received no disinfection treatment (the habitual practice in nurseries). Seeds were supplied by the BASFOR’s Banco de Semillas Forestales (Forestry Seed Bank). After the plantsemerged they were thinned into black plastic bags (15 × 8 cm) containing a 2:1 black earth/silt substrate (one per bag). At the two-leaf stage the plants were set in the ground, with a spacing of 1 × 1 m as follows: Plot 1 (R1) approximately 600 - 700 plantlets, Plot 2 (R2) approximately 700 - 800 plantlets and Plot 3 (R3) approximately 700 - 800 plantlets. Weeding was continuous. Up to two alternating antifungal treatments were provided (Ca(OH)2 with sulphur (1 L Sulfocalcic broth)/20 L H2O), or propiconazole + difeconazole (2 ml of Taspa/1 L H2O) to control powdery mildew.
Disease incidence was determined as the number of plants with typical symptoms of wilting/total number of plants × 100 . Five assessments were made in 2010 and six in 2013 (once every 14 days). A disease progress curve was plotted, and then linearised usingthe logit function LN(y/1 - y) .
3. Results
3.1. Symptoms of Wilt in Tara
The characteristic symptoms of wilting in the nursery plants was recorded as initial yellowing of the folioles, in some cases accompanied by a reddening of the foliole underside (Figure 2(a)). Gradually, this reddening became more intense before defoliation (Figure 2(b)). Plantlets with symptoms showed reduced development compared to healthy plants (Figure 2(c), left), and the roots showed signs of decomposition; indeed, there was hardly any secondary root system (Figure 2(c), left). Finally, the xylem took on a dark brown colour at the base of the stem (Figure 2(d)).
Identification of the causal agent
(a) (b)
Figure 1. (a) Left: taraplantlets with symptoms of wilting; Right: apparently healthy plants before planting; (b) Left: diseased tara plants showing their poor root system; Right: apparently healthy plants with much more developed root systems.
(a) (b) (c) (d)
Figure 2. Characteristic symptoms of wilting in tara. (a) Yellowing (red arrow) of the folioles and defoliation; (b) Reddening (red arrow) of the folioles; (c) Root systems of apparently healthy (left) and diseased plantlets (right); (d) Vascular discoloration (red arrow) at the bottom of the stem in a diseased plantlet.
All the samples from both the healthy and diseased plants produced mycelia on PDA (Figure 3 and Figure 4). All samples produced mild (Figure 3(b), Figures 3(e)-(h)) to intense (Figure 3(a), Figure 3(c), Figure 3(d)) lilac-coloured colonies, which under the microscope all showed the macro- and microconidia (Figure 5(a)), monophialides with false heads (Figure 5(b)) and chlamydospores (single or in pairs) (Figure 5(c)) characteristic of Fusarium sp. .
Some plates showed contaminating colonies of Cylindrocarpon sp. (Figure 3, red arrows); others showed accompanying colonies of Cylindrocarpon sp. (Figure 3, white arrows), as determined from the orange colour of the spores.
3.2. Disease Incidence
Figure 6 shows the disease progress curve for the plots R1, R2 and R3 for 2010 (Figure 6(a)) and 2013 (Figure 6(b), Figure 6(c)). In both years, disease progress was monitored for up to 84 days following thinning. In 2010, the incidence of wilting for was 2.56% per 14 days for R1, 3.15% per 14 days for R2, and 2.22% per 14 days for R3 (Figure 6(a)); while in 2013 these values were 1.24%, 2.45% and 2.13% respectively (Figure 6(c)). The mean incidence (R1-R3) over the monitoring period was 2.64%, for 2010, and 1.94% for 2013.
3.3. Apparent Infection Rate
Figure 7(a) and Figure 7(b) show the linearized disease progress curves for 2010 and 2013. The apparent infection rates for the three plots in 2010 were: rR1 = 0.0003/day, rR2 = 0.0003/day and rR3 = 0.0003/day, while for 2013 they were rR1 = 0.0003/day, rR2 = 0.0004/day and rR3 = 0.0003/day. The experimental errors for 2010 were R2 = 0.98, R2 = 0.99 and R2 = 0.95 respectively (Figure 7(a)), and for 2013 they were R2 = 0.99, R2 = 0.99 and R2 = 0.94 respectively (Figure 7(b)).
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h)
Figure 3. Growth on PDA of colonies derived from apparently healthy (a-d) and diseased (e-h) plantlets. Contaminant fungal colonies are marked with red arrows, and Cylindrocarpon sp. with white arrows.
Figure 4. Growth of Fusarium sp. (clear pink = lilac colony) and Cylindrocarpon sp. (white arrow) on PDA, as derived from diseased (left) and apparently healthy (right) plantlets.
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 5. Morphological characteristics of F. oxysporum. (a) Macroconidia (red arrows), microconidia (white arrow) (400×); (b) Short monophialideswith false heads formed by microconidia (white arrow) (400×); (c) Chlamidospore pairs (red arrow) and on their own (white arrow) (400×).
(a)(b)
Figure 6. Disease progress curves for the incidence of wilting in taracaused by F. oxysporum. (a) 2010; (b) 2013. R1 = Plot 1, approximately 600 - 700 plantlets; R2 = Plot 2, approximately 700 - 800 plantlets and R3 = Plot 3, approximately 700 - 800 plantlets.
Figure 7. Linearization of the disease progress curves. (a) 2010; (b) 2013. R1 = Plot 1, approximately 600 - 700 plantlets; R2 = Plot 2, approximately 700 - 800 plantlets and R3 = Plot 3, approximately 700 - 800 plantlets.
4. Discussion
The genus Fusarium contains plant pathogens that affect a wide range of plants, including banana, cotton, pulses, maize, rice, sorghum, barley and oats. In wheat, they are among the most commonly involved in crown, root, stem, grain and spike rot. They also cause vascular wilting in many other plants . The present work shows F. oxysporum to cause wilting in tara.
The characteristic symptoms of wilting in tara include the initial yellowing and gradual reddening of the folioles, defoliation, vascular discolouring, dwarfism, degradation of the root system and death. These symptoms agree with those described by Agrios , who indicated F. oxysporum Schlechtto be commonly present in soil and to cause vascular wilting in a range of plants. Indeed, F. oxysporum is the most common cause of vascular wilting in a range of economically important crops . This anamorphic species is characterised by a number of morphological criteria, including the shape of the macroconidia, the structure of the micro conidiophores, and the formation of chlamydospores . The present isolates obtained from the roots of diseased and apparently healthy plants had a mild lilac colour, and under the microscope showed the characteristic macroconidia, conidiophores with short phialides and false heads, and chlamydospores (in pairs oralone) of F. oxysporum as described by Leslie and Summerell and Summerell, Salleh and Leslie (Figures 5(a)-(c)). F. oxysporum is characterised as a plant pathogen that affects a variety of cultivated annual and fruit plants . Cylindrocarpon sp., a contaminant, was also isolated from some samples, as was Cylindrocarpon sp., another soil pathogen.
The progress curves for the incidence of wilting were similar in both study years, with meanprogress slightly greater (0.7%) in 2010, likely due to factors not measured in the present work. In a study on cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) wilting caused by F. oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum Snyder and Hansen, Madden et al. indicate that the increase in the number of infected plants over time is not caused by the plant-to-plant dissemination of the fungus, but rather by the inoculum present in the soil. Campbell and Madden categorizes such diseases as monocyclic, i.e., in which there is a single infection cycle . In the present work too, the source of infection would appear to be the soil. The propagules of F. oxysporumcan survive long periods in the soil in the absence of any host .
Campbell and Madden indicates that monocyclic diseases can be described by monomolecular models. The most important variables in such models are the initial inoculum (yo), the apparent infection rate (r), and the maximum incidence of the disease. These models have been used to describe the incidence of different epiphytes in annual crops such as lettuce wilt (Lactucasativa) caused by Sclerotinia minor, wheat root rot (Triticum sativum L.) caused byCochliobolus sativus , and lettuce wilt caused by Sclerotinia minor and S. sclerotiorum , etc. In the present work, the apparent infection rates for 2010 and 2013 were similarly low at rR1-R3 = 0.0003/day and rR1-R3 = 0.0003 - 0.0004/day respectively. Other authors report similar values for monocyclic diseases caused by soil pathogens in annual plants . These findings are compatible with F. oxysporum.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, wilting in tara starts as a yellowing of the folioles, their gradual reddening, and after defoliation, decomposition of the root system, and finally death. Samples of all the plants examined, whether showing signs of disease or apparently healthy, produced fungal colonies on PDA. Given the morphology of these colonies, their ability to grow on PDA, their macroconidia, phialides and chlamydospores, the causal agent of wilting would appear to be F. oxysporum. The disease progress curve for the incidence of this disease in tara fits that of a monocyclic epiphyte, with low infection rates characteristic of soil pathogens. According to the results obtained, the wilting of tara could become an emerging disease in field plantations.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to ASDI-DICYT-UMSS for financial support for publishing this article. Thanks are also owed to the Banco de Semillas Forestales of the Escuela de Ciencias Forestales (BASFOR-ESFOR, Universidad Mayor de San Simon) for access to its nursery and the use of materials, the students (II/2013) of Forestry Plant Entomology and Pathology at the ESFOR for their help in field and laboratory work, and Adrian Burton for language and editing assistance.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. | https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=87006 |
Based on Michael Ashton’s play The Archbishop and the Antichrist and directed by Roland Joffé, The Forgiven is a fictionalised account of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s efforts as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and follows his struggle – morally and intellectually – with brutal murderer and member of a former apartheid-era hit squad Piet Blomfeld, over redemption and forgiveness.
The film revisits the height of the TRC to grapple with the terrible truth of apartheid and its legacy and is aligned with Joffé’s knack reputation for hard-hitting political stories as it is analytical and bluntly violent in its depiction of South Africa’s recent political history.
“This is a subject that’s both social and political but also rather personal because let’s be honest, we’ve all done things in our lives that we need forgiveness for, that we haven’t come to terms with. We’re all prisoners of our history, whether it’s social, cultural or family,” Joffé said.
The Forgiven stars Academy-Award winner, Forrest Whitaker as the Archbishop as well as Eric Bana as Piet Blomfeld. Both actors deliver finely nuanced performances, with Whitaker conveying Tutu’s formidable inner strength, dignity, and compassion while Bana makes loathsome Blomfeld suitably scary and human at the same time.
“I knew his laugh, his sense of humour, how he felt, his passion, and his faith. But he has a graceful way in which he looks at the world. Trying to pull those things together, to capture the spirit of the man, was challenging,” Whitaker said.
With powerful acting, relevant social commentary, adept writing, and direction, The Forgiven is a powerful film, and a testament to the power of forgiveness and finding common ground in humanity.
Speaking on the film, Archbishop Tutu said the film captures what it felt like to work with the TRC in attempts to help bring both truth and reconciliation to the people of South Africa.
“The film is a tribute to the remarkable healing power of forgiveness and the outstanding compassion and courage of those who offered love and forgiveness as an antidote to hate and inhumanity. This is not only a film about a certain time and place, it is a peen of hope to humanity at large,” said Tutu.
The Forgiven was released in South African cinemas on 5 October.
Watch The Forgiven trailer below: | https://citybuzz.co.za/87691/watch-long-awaited-desmond-tutu-film-finally-big-screen/ |
In the early days of neuroimaging, brain function was investigated by averaging across voxels within a region, stimuli within a category, and individuals within a group. These three forms of averaging discard important neuroscientific information. Recent studies have explored analyses that combine the evidence in better-motivated ways. Multivariate pattern analyses enable researchers to reveal representations in distributed population codes, honouring the unique information contributed by different voxels (or neurons). Condition-rich designs more richly sample the stimulus space and can treat each stimulus as a unique entity. Finally, each individual's brain is unique and recent studies have found ways to model and analyse the interindividual representational variability. Here we review our field's journey towards more sophisticated analyses that honour these important idiosyncrasies of brain representations. We describe an emerging framework for investigating individually unique pattern representations of particular stimuli in the brain. The framework models stimuli, responses and individuals multivariately and relates representations by means of representational dissimilarity matrices. Important components are computational models and multivariate descriptions of brain and behavioural responses. These recent developments promise a new paradigm for studying the individually unique brain at unprecedented levels of representational detail. | https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publications/the-brain-of-the-beholder-honouring-individual-representational-i |
Q:
Working in table - function to work with margin sums and individual values
Here is my small dataset
set.seed(123)
X1 <- rep(1:3, each = 4)
X2 <- c(1:4, 1:4, 1:4)
Y <- rnorm (12, 4, 20)
myd <- data.frame(X1, X2, Y)
# "unmelten" form of the dataframe
aggregate(Y ~ X1, myd, 'c')
X1 Y.1 Y.2 Y.3 Y.4
1 1 -7.2095129 -0.6035498 35.1741663 5.4101678
2 2 6.5857547 38.3012997 13.2183241 -21.3012247
3 3 -9.7370570 -4.9132394 28.4816359 11.1962765
The actual data matrix is bigger in dimension. I want to write a function that use the melten form the data to a math like this:
Example for X1, Y1.1 cell
(X1,Y.1) - sum(X1 row) - sum(Y.1 column) + grand total (= sum(Y))
-7.2095129 - ( -7.2095129 - 0.6035498 + 35.1741663 + 5.4101678) - ( -7.2095129 + 6.5857547 -9.7370570) + sum ( all values in the able)
Other two example to make my point clear.
For X2, Y1.1 cell
(X2,Y.1) - sum(X2 row) - sum(Y.1 column) + grand total (= sum(Y))
For X3, Y.3 cell
(X3,Y.3) - sum(X3 row) - sum(Y.3 column) + grand total (= sum(Y))
Similarly this will output a matrix of 3 x 4 size for each cell in the matrix.
I was trying to write a function to do this, but could get any idea. help please
A:
Just do this
z1 <- aggregate(Y ~ X1, myd, 'c')[,-1]
ans <- z1 - rowSums(z1) - colSums(z1) + sum(z1)
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]
[1,] 64.98307 65.92300 20.13181 34.45743
[2,] 31.60013 106.46100 75.71199 -40.37646
[3,] -17.03576 31.87768 108.41788 85.46648
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I read with interest the article in the June 2017 Render by [Dr.] Frank Mitloehner, professor at the University of California, Davis, about “Livestock’s Contribution to Climate Change.” There is one aspect of this topic I was looking for in the article that was never mentioned. Cows, pigs, chickens, and human beings are all “biomass.” Everything we eat and discharge in any way contains biogenic carbon, not fossil carbon.
The reason that GHGs [greenhouse gases] (particularly carbon dioxide) are growing in concentration in our atmosphere is because we are digging up, or pumping up, fossil-based carbon fuels and burning them. In contrast, the amount and complexity of life forms on planet Earth, on land, in the oceans, plants, and animals are all part of the natural carbon cycle. If we were not digging up and burning fossil-based carbon, there would be no net increase of carbon (dioxide) in our atmosphere.
Now people can argue that we use fossil fuels to run tractors and agricultural machinery to grow crops and feed cattle and pigs and chickens. So, from an “accounting” point of view, those fossil-based fuels used in agriculture can be transferred to the cows and pigs and chickens that are being supported. But, those fossil fuels could eventually be replaced with renewable fuels. Then, would the natural emissions from animals still be considered GHGs? We could cut trees to use as fuel to burn and generate electricity (and carbon dioxide). If we did this “sustainably” and cut only two or three percent of a forest in a given year to run the electrical power plant, and re-plant the harvested two or three percent, the designated forest could generate electricity forever, with no net carbon emissions, since the other 97 to 98 percent of the forest would continue to grow and re-absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis every year.
So, I don’t think that natural emissions from cows, or other animals, should even be considered in the GHG mass balance equation. This is biomass-based biogenic carbon, not fossil carbon. If methane gas from a (fossil-based) natural gas well is leaking gas to the atmosphere, yes, that is contributing to the overall GHG mass balance. But methane from a cow’s stomachs is all biogenic carbon; it should not be added to the GHG mass balance as it is part of the natural carbon cycle. The carbon dioxide that we all exhale every day, along with every other person and critter on this planet, is not contributing to GHGs, but if we dig up coal and burn it, that resulting carbon dioxide is contributing to the GHG mass balance. “Carbon dioxide” and “carbon dioxide” appears to be the same, but it isn’t. It depends upon the source of the carbon – is it biogenic-based carbon or fossil-based carbon? That is the question!
So, I disagree with the author’s conclusion – “Livestock accounts for only 4.2 percent of all GHG emissions in the United States.” On the contrary, livestock contribute zero percent GHGs to our atmosphere.
Kirk Cobb has made some valid points and some that require clarification.
It is correct that carbon dioxide (CO2) from livestock respiration is not counted in any of the serious lifecycle assessments. The reason is that the forage that livestock consumes assimilates atmospheric CO2 and releases oxygen. Once the animals eat these feedstuffs, they metabolize the nutrients and expel CO2 – a wash overall.
CO2 emissions are not a major consideration from animal agriculture but the much more heat trapping gases methane and nitrous oxide are. Methane is 25 times and nitrous oxide almost 300 times more potent than CO2 and livestock production is one of the major emitters of both. In the emission inventories, they are converted into CO2 equivalents.
Cobb maybe half jokingly refers to cow farts as not being the issue and he is right. It is not the back end but rather the front end of ruminants that are a main methane source. The animals consume carbonaceous feed and then microbes make some of that into the potent methane or even into nitrous oxide. This conversion of nutrients into belched- or manure-derived methane or that of fertilizers into nitrous oxide is what makes up the majority of the impacts the livestock sector has on greenhouse gases.
The time has come to own the sector’s environmental responsibilities and continue the path of making further improvements that are called for by today’s society and the marketplace. | http://www.rendermagazine.com/articles/2017-issues/august-2017/letters/ |
Constant kinetic energy
A body moving in a circular path with a constant speed has a Constant kinetic energy. When a body is moving in a circular motion with constant speed, the direction of it continuously changes and hence velocity(v), momentum(p), and acceleration change because they are vectors and their direction changes. only as kinetic energy is a scalar, it remains constant.
What is the minimum escape velocity of rocket to be launched in to space?
Which set of conditions represents the easiest way to liquify a gas? | https://www.morningexam.com/general-science/a-body-moving-in-a-circular-path-with-a-constant-speed-has-a/ |
US Antiwar Activist on Afghanistan 'Doubt Will Turn into Dissent'
SPIEGEL ONLINE: NATO air strikes called in by German commanders have reportedly killed dozens of civilians in Afghanistan. Do you think this will generate more support for your antiwar movement?
Tom Hayden: This incident will cause even greater opposition in Germany, where 70 percent of the population is already opposed to the fighting in Afghanistan. NATO's policy is unsustainable -- but the drive to escalate and to not appear to be losing is very powerful among politicians, including German ones. But our protest movement is becoming more vocal day-by-day, above all in the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany. I spoke in Berlin and Heidelberg during the Iraq war, and I expect to be back.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: As a veteran of the protests against the Vietnam War, you know a lot about public resistance, and now you're promising a "storm of protest" against the US war in Afghanistan. What will that entail?
Hayden: The emotion that people are feeling is deep disappointment over the Afghanistan policy of Barack Obama and the US Congress, which now registers as a surprising 70 percent disapproval rate for the war among Democrats. Doubt will turn into dissent; it will manifest in congressional districts. The Democrats will find it hard to ignore their base. The slightest loss of support from the 2008 antiwar base will be very threatening to their electoral success.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How many activists have you succeeded in mobilizing so far?
Hayden: Change moves slowly, except when it moves very rapidly. A few traditionalists will march on Predator (drone) launch sites or on the White House gates. But this is deeper; it's about people expressing deep disillusionment after so much euphoria over Obama's election a short time ago.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is this disillusionment already so deep?
Hayden: Obama is caught between the social movements that made his presidency possible, including the anti-Iraq-war movement, and the Machiavellians, who are accustomed to running everything with little or no interference from the voters.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You seem to be saying that Obama should be careful about taking the support of the left for granted. How are you planning to remind him of that?
Hayden: We are currently organizing in about 75 congressional districts, where people still hope the president listens. The dissent in 75 districts will turn into 150 and keep growing when next year's request for war funding is presented in January. At this point, we have a unique situation in which huge numbers of people want Obama and the Democrats to succeed domestically -- but will not be silent about the war.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There is much more debate now about the objectives of the mission in Afghanistan.
Hayden: It is growing on its own, partly as a continuation of the antiwar consciousness that arose during the (George W.) Bush years. American casualty rates are higher than ever because of the fighting in southern Afghanistan, in Kandahar and Helmand. August was the deadliest month ever for US troops (in Afghanistan).
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still, the president might decide to send even more troops.
Hayden: The generals can't stop themselves from wanting more troops. That is happening even though it is now clear that we are fighting for a kind of Frankenstein client in Kabul -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- whom we created ourselves.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Prominent voices on the right, including columnist George Will, have now joined the chorus of people calling for a withdrawal. Does that help your protest movement?
Hayden: George Will seems to want the "white man's burden" continued by men with darker skin. His proposal to keep killing from offshore makes no sense, but it begins to rattle the Republican bloc. More important is the fact that Richard Haass, the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, has written in the New York Times that Afghanistan is not a "necessary war," thereby challenging the premise of the Democrats.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It's also the premise of President Obama, who uses that phrase often.
Hayden: I believe the "necessity" in question has been a political necessity among Democrats who fear being perceived as soft on terrorism.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: As a veteran of the anti-Vietnam War protests, do you see parallels to the current debate on Afghanistan?
Hayden: In both cases, the US has profoundly underestimated the force of nationalism, seeing everything in terms of communism then and terrorism now. Escalation was always chosen in order to not lose. | https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/us-antiwar-activist-on-afghanistan-doubt-will-turn-into-dissent-a-647357.html |
This invention relates to solid state electrochemical devices comprised of one or more electrodes in contact with a solid state electrolyte membrane. More specifically, this invention relates to solid state electrochemical devices in which a lower total internal resistance of the cell results in better performance of the device, such as solid oxide or ceramic fuel cell devices or solid oxide or ceramic electrolytic cells.
A solid state electrochemical cell comprises two electrodes, the anode and the cathode, and a dense solid electrolyte membrane which separates the anode and cathode regions of the cell. The anodic and cathodic reactions occur at the anode/electrolyte and cathode/electrolyte interfaces, respectively. The solid electrolyte membrane is a material capable of conducting ionic species, such as oxygen ions, sodium ions, fluoride ions, or hydrogen ions, yet has a low electrical conductivity. The electrolyte membrane must be impermeable to the electrochemical reactants.
It is known to prepare a solid oxide fuel cell comprising a dense electrolyte membrane of a ceramic oxygen ion conductor, a porous anode layer of a ceramic or a metal or, most commonly, a ceramic-metal composite, in contact with the electrolyte membrane on the fuel side of the cell, and a porous cathode layer of an electronically-conductive metal oxide on the oxidant side of the cell, which generates electricity through the electrochemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidant. This net electrochemical reaction involves charge transfer steps that occur at the interface between the ionically-conductive electrolyte membrane, the electronically-conductive electrode and the vapor phase (fuel or oxygen). The contribution of these charge transfer steps, in particular the charge transfer occurring at the oxygen electrode, to the total internal resistance of a solid oxide fuel cell device can be significant, especially if the fuel cell operating temperature is relatively low. Reducing the internal resistance of a solid oxide fuel cell device improves its performance characteristics.
Electrode structures comprising a porous layer of electrolyte particles on a dense electrolyte membrane with electrocatalyst material on and within the porous layer of electrolyte are known. In such electrodes, the electrocatalyst material is continuous on the surface of the porous electrolyte material to create a three phase boundary (TPB) where the electrolyte material, electrocatalyst, and gas are in contact. The electrode is prepared by applying an electrocatalyst precursor material as a slurry to a porous electrolyte structure, and then heating the precursor material to form the electrocatalyst. However, it is usually necessary to repeat the process of applying the electrocatalyst precursor material to the porous substrate several times in order to provide enough electrocatalyst to obtain a fuel cell with the desired performance characteristics. For fuel cell applications, this method of creating the layer of electrocatalyst in and on the porous electrolyte structure by repeated applications of the electrocatalyst slurry may create more process steps in the preparation of the fuel cell than would be desirable in a commercial manufacturing process. In addition, the performance characteristics of the electrode structure prepared by such processes, such as the voltage at a certain current density, may be less than desirable for certain applications.
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Our client develops cutting edge artificial intelligence systems that are transforming the way cancer is diagnosed. This technology enables rapid and accurate decision-making, and illuminates new diagnostic insights to enable precision medicine.
Responsibilities:
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Manage US clinical trials and research across all aspects of clinical/research sites, including protocols and support for regulatory documentation
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Travel to clinical sites in North America
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Oversee and supervise clinical operations and vendors/CROs to ensure that these activities are conducted in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements and guidelines (including company SOPs, ICH-GCP guidelines, regulatory authority regulations, and patient safety standards)
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Identify and recruit appropriate clinical sites and investigators
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Maintain strong relationships with external experts and Investigators to ensure effective execution of clinical projects
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Develop and write clinical study protocols and plans, IRB submission documents, CRFs, and clinical study reports
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Facilitates training for clinical study teams
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Ensure the generation of high-quality data
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Collaborate cross-functionally to ensure successful, rigorous, and timely studies
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Analyze, interpret, and present results to internal and external stakeholders
Requirements: | https://www.hireminds.com/jobs/clinical-project-manager-19095/ |
Biography – Alicia Baden
Alicia is the founding member and Managing Director of Graduate Excellence. She has a Bachelor of Business majoring in Management and Human Resources, and a Masters of Business Human Resources, both obtained from the University of Technology Sydney.
Alicia has extensive knowledge and experience of the practical application of Human Resources, having worked in a number of large multinational corporations in varying capacities, including providing Management Consulting to organisations on ways in which to improve their employee engagement, and as a Learning Consultant for one of Australia’s largest investment banks.
Prior to establishing Graduate Excellence, Alicia has applied her expertise as a Consultant to learning organisations at a tertiary level, armed with the task of preparing students in the recruitment process, involving the preparation of professional resume writing and interview skills. Alicia has experience in coaching students on topics including cover letters, dress for success, professionalism in the workplace, job search strategies, the role of social media in recruitment, and employability skills.
As a Professional Member (MAHRI) of the Australian Human Resources Institute, Alicia is required to remain abreast of the current trends in the industry through the application of continued professional development. Together with her tertiary studies, this knowledge and experience highlights Alicia’s expertise and professionalism in dealing with Human Resource related matters, and her ability to understand and apply what employers want from graduates seeking a role within their organisation.
For further information on the benefits of choosing Graduate Excellence, please see Why Graduate Excellence? | http://graduateexcellence.com.au/meet-alicia/ |
Properly Tracking Energy Efficiency Projects: A Guide to Measurement and Verification in 2022
There has never been a greater need for proper energy savings and efficiency projects across all industries and infrastructure in society. Given the uncertain future, due to geopolitical crisis, pandemic shutdowns, and climate risk contributing to rising energy costs and ambiguous future policy and environmental developments, the rising demand for technological advancement in the market is a given.
However, the lack of transparent and accurate data to measure changes in energy usage, as well as an absence of a standard approach for measuring and verifying that data to relevant third parties, consumers, and regulatory agencies have created challenges for those looking to participate. Measurement and Verification (M&V) was a tool created to address these issues by providing robust and reliable performance information for energy and climate projects.
This guide provides context and specifics into how Measurement and Verification works, the different regulatory bodies and protocols that M&V adheres to, benefits to using M&V, and the role WatchWire can play in assisting with the M&V process.
Fill out the form at right to read! | https://watchwire.ai/resources_blog/properly-tracking-energy-efficiency-projects-2/ |
Blog: Instinctual Learning and Instinctual Reinforcement Learning
I want to introduce this technical series of blog posts that outline a concept I have been working on for some time. Currently, I refer to this concept as Instinctual and Instinctual Reinforcement Learning. This concept crosses many areas of machine learning from evolutionary algorithms, gene expression programming to deep learning and reinforcement learning. It is therefore not intended for novices or layman, as many of my other blog posts are.
Instinctual Learning
The motivation behind Instinctual Learning is the search for the functions that simulate lower forms of learning we will refer to as instincts. An instinct is defined as the patterns or behavior in an organism in response to some stimuli. For lower level instincts this behavior is learned over generations of species and becomes an embedded system within the organism. Take for example the Pacific North West Salmon. A salmon will instinctively swim to it’s original spawning grounds given no previous instructions. We will assume the knowledge is not passed on to other salmon through communication. Meaning the organism itself needs to learn to return home across generations by some form of genetic learning.
Instinctual Reinforcement Learning
Instincts describe a base form of learning which we could account for several different forms. One form of learning we often associate with feedback is called Reinforcement Learning. It is further suggested that RL is just an advanced form of Instinctual Learning but with the introduction of feedback or rewards. With that in mind it is best to think of Instinctual Learning as a meta learning or auto machine learning solution. Since the RL portion, or the part that introduces rewards or feedback is an advanced form it will be looked at in the next blog entry.
Base Form of Learning
In order to simulate Instinctual Learning we therefore need a mathematical system of equations that define the actions of the organism. If we take some inspiration from RL here we can derive or define the following:
What we define here is 2 unknown equations. One that defines the action of the organism and the other that updates the memory. If we put this in terms of a deep learning network. The action represents the forward pass and the memory update represents the training or in case of neural networks, backpropagation. The following diagram is intended to describe this concept further:
Solving for the equations themselves is best suited to evolutionary or what is often groups as genetic algorithms. One class of such algorithms best suited to finding specific equations using machine learning is called Gene Expression Programming (GEP). GEP was developed by Candida Ferreira in 2001 and is derived from the family of machine learning algorithms derived from evolutionary theory and are associated with evolutionary computation.
Gene Expression Programming
GEP defines a method or search pattern that allows us to use evolutionary patterns to derive our unknown equations. The basic form is used to derive relatively simple equations but GEP can be used to derive code (expression trees) and handle more complex data structures. An example of how the process works is summarized in the diagram below:
For the purposes of this post we will use single quantity values. GEP has been extended to include tensors and it is the goal of this series to later also introduce tensor mathematics as a way to first solve regression problems. Then the ultimate goal will be to create an Instinctual Reinforcement Learner that can learn to learn to classify the handwritten MNIST digits database. It will be left up to the reader to further their knowledge on Genetic Programming and GEP. A great starting point is the Gepsoft site itself which offers a free trial version of software that can allow you to explore GEP on your own.
GeneXproTools 5.0 is an easy to use modeling and data mining software for data analysis.www.gepsoft.com
The Gepsoft tool is a fun tool to explore and I myself have used it to solve the odd classification and regression problem when no other solution would fit well. If you have a strong background in data science and not explored GEP before you may also be pleasantly surprised in other ways.
The Problem
In order to simulate an instinctual learner we are going to use a grid world like environment with the goal of the agent/organism to make it to the highest point. Below is a diagram of how this looks:
Furthermore, in this environment we denote the state or the cell the organism is currently in by the corresponding number (1–16). The organism will always start at position 1 with it’s ultimate goal of reaching position 16. The organism can move up (1), right (2), down (3) and left (4) when not blocked by a wall. The red arrows denote examples of where the organism is unable to move because of blocking wall.
If we consider our earlier salmon analogy. The salmon needs to find it’s way home given some internal system of equations. We will use GEP to find the equations but in order to do that we need to define some reward or fitness for organism/algorithm. In order to simplify this model we assume all rewards are awarded at the end of an episode. Which in turn means that our reward function could also be thought of as a fitness function. The final fitness for our algorithm will be set by what state it is able to attain. Higher states provide greater rewards or fitness and the reward value is denoted by the lower right number. For 16, the goal state, this value is 1.0. We set the other rewards based on how far the organism progresses but at the same time we will also introduce a negative step reward accumulated for each step taken. Introducing a step reward encourages the agent to be more efficient and is a trick borrowed from RL.
Solving the Problem
In order to solve this problem with GEP we are going to use a C# package called GeneticSharp. GeneticSharp is an advanced genetic programming package that provides a mechanism for playing with gene expression programming among other evolutionary programming concepts.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find a comparable library in Python that was as easy to use or as powerful. If you are aware of any GEP tools in Python that support tensors or TensorFlow please leave a comment at the end.
I have a working code example up on GitHub at:
Contribute to cxbxmxcx/InstinctualLearning development by creating an account on GitHub.github.com
Feel free to pull down the code as I will refer to it several times over the remainder of the post.
The example source code consists of 2 projects. One class library and the other a console app for testing. The InstinctualLearning.Console project contains the main code for loading the various setup code from GeneticSharp and is common across evolutionary computation. This example borrows from the GenticSharp examples in how it is setup and operated.
The Code
The easiest way for me to describe the rest of the process to a more general audience is with the code. You can open the source in Visual Studio Code, Community or Professional and review each of the sections as I summarize them below. You can run the source code by loading the solution and setting the console project as the startup. From there just launch the program and a console window will open. For the purposes of later comparisons I have kept the standard GEP interface. That means the program is expecting sets of inputs to equal some value. The secret here is that program only currently requires one set to define the number of inputs. All this means is that you just needs to fill out the input given the example in the image below:
In order to run the code you just need to enter:
1,2,3=6 or any combination of 3 inputs equally one output
GA this starts the next step
6 this is the number of operations total for our expression, GEP provides a mechanism to minimize this number as needed. The minimum number of parameters to solve this problem are 6. The larger the number of parameters the larger the functions search space.
As the console app runs, the output will change and you will see the inputs, max operations and combined function. After this follows the current best path the organism has found, examples below:
The function represents the combined function. Recall that we want to derive a set of functions. One to determine actions and the other to update memory. We allow for this by simply dividing the function our GEP finds for us into 2 parts, action and memory. Therefore, the function shown actually needs to be split in half. In order to understand this further we will look at the code that defines the organism fitness below:
Evaluate is the function by where all the work happens. It’s purpose is to take a new organism provided by the GEP system and evaluate it’s fitness or total reward. We could also use the term cumulative reward here as well. After some basic initialization of parameters we see the function getting equally divided in the following block of code:
Recall that the action and memory functions define our organisms instinctive learning system. In our particular example we don’t use external inputs. Rather the inputs for those functions will be defined as the organism moves through it’s environment. If you look down further in the code you can see the loop that cycles through the episodes. This is our training loop and at each step in the training loop the organism inputs the state, action and memory. Then is uses the action function to calculate it’s next action. It then inputs the action and updates it’s memory by executing the memory function. The specific code to do this is shown below:
Again, at this point we omit any concept of feedback or immediate rewards to keep things simpler. The environment in the current example is the Grid World environment previously outlined but adding other environments should be fairly simple. The code for the Grid World environment is fairly simple and should be self explanatory for anyone who has read this far.
For each iteration of an episode, the organism receives the current state, denoted by it’s current cell. It then uses the action part of the equation to derive its next action. Then the organism acts on that action and updates its memory accordingly with the memory function. When you run the example you will see the organism’s path get generated. The path shows which cells the organism followed and the actions it took to get there. Below is another example running showing the results in more detail:
Generalized Equations
The example output shows one possible set of optimum equations that can be derived to solve the Grid World problem. Of all the optimum solutions derived none were observed to include the state parameter in the derived function. This seemed somewhat counter intuitive. Another interesting side effect is the fact that by not using state in the derived equations are general enough to apply to any size Grid World, be it size 16, 100 or 1000. This may mean, this method could provide more general solutions for all manner of learning problems.
Next Steps
Instinctual Learning is intended to define a base system of learning in which higher levels of learning such as feedback or reinforcement learning may be derived. This is what I hope to cover in my next series of blogs about this topic, albeit please don’t expect these to come out in quick succession:
1 — Instinctual Learning — this blog describing the premise of Instinctual Learning and how an organism may solve the a common Grid World problem.
2 — Instinctual Reinforcement Learning — in the next blog I will introduce the feedback into the learning system and see how an organism/agent may use this to solve the typical contextual bandit/room.
3 — Instinctual Learning with Tensors — one of the main limitations with GEP is the way it handles feature inputs. This has shown to be corrected by treating parameters as multidimensional tensors. My intention here will be to introduce TensorFlow and thus not just create expression trees but rather TF graphs. Introducing tensors will allow for any input of state, action, memory and rewards to be calculated in the system. The ultimate goal of this stage will be to develop an organism that can learn to perform linear regression.
4 — Instinctual Reinforcement Learning with Tensors — the current final end goal is to develop a system that can learn to recognize the MNIST hand written digits with a better than random chance in about 100–1000 iterations. The purpose of this step is to prove how well the agent can be derived to learn and recognize digits. It is expected that resulting derived equations may share some insight into deep learning and the fundamentals of neural networks.
0 — Gene Expression Programming — I have chosen to omit the explanation GEP in this blog in order to keep this post under 10 minutes. If there is enough interest I can certainly provide blog on a tutorial for doing GEP.
Conclusion
The introduction of Instinctual Learning is intended as a means and explanation for how learning itself was derived or evolved. In this post we explored the foundations or base instincts an organism could use to evolve a learning solution. This solution is based on two fundamental equations or functions that define the action and then the equations that updates the memory. A method not unlike how a deep learning system behaves. With the action representing the forward pass through the network and the memory or update function as a form of backpropagation of errors. It is hoped that by introducing tensors into this system we can explore further foundations of deep learning and other machine learning systems.
Future blog posts may or may not use Python. Please post a comment if you know of GEP system for Python that does or may accommodate TensorFlow? | https://timmccloud.net/blog-instinctual-learning-and-instinctual-reinforcement-learning/ |
Purpose: We sought to determine the frequency and clinical characteristics of patients with lung cancer harboring NRAS mutations. We used preclinical models to identify targeted therapies likely to be of benefit against NRAS-mutant lung cancer cells. Experimental Design: We reviewed clinical data from patients whose lung cancers were identified at six institutions or reported in the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) to harbor NRAS mutations. Six NRAS-mutant cell lines were screened for sensitivity against inhibitors of multiple kinases (i.e., EGFR, ALK, MET, IGF-1R, BRAF, PI3K, and MEK). Results: Among 4,562 patients with lung cancers tested, NRAS mutations were present in 30 (0.7%; 95% confidence interval, 0.45%-0.94%); 28 of these had no other driver mutations. 83% had adenocarcinoma histology with no significant differences in gender. While 95% of patients were former or current smokers, smoking-related G:C>T:A transversions were significantly less frequent in NRAS-mutated lung tumors than KRAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer [NSCLC; NRAS: 13% (4/30), KRAS: 66% (1772/2733), P <0.00000001]. Five of 6 NRAS-mutant cell lines were sensitive to the MEK inhibitors, selumetinib and trametinib, but not to other inhibitors tested. Conclusion: NRAS mutations define a distinct subset of lung cancers (∼1%) with potential sensitivity to MEK inhibitors. Although NRAS mutations are more common in current/former smokers, the types of mutations are not those classically associated with smoking. | https://jhu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/characteristics-of-lung-cancers-harboring-nras-mutations-3 |
Thermochromic ink is widely available in industrial markets. Thermochromic ink has pigments that change color when subjected to a known temperature range. In a first state with first conditions, the thermochromic ink can be used to write on paper. In a second state, under second conditions, the thermochromic ink changes color. Pens with thermochromic ink, such as FriXion pens manufactured by the Pilot Pen Company turn clear when exposed to temperatures above 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Thermochromic ink pens are designed to be erasable in the following way: the person using the pen writes on the page with the thermochromic ink pen. Then the person rubs the writing with the rubber eraser, which creates friction, generating heat above 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and which turns the ink clear. Erasing a whole sheet of paper, several sheets of paper, or a whole notebook by hand would be tedious and would require too much time and effort to be a practical solution.
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Ugh I do not feel like going to work tomorrow! A post in the human coronavirus thread made me think... this could change everything. Businesses may offer their employees telecommuting a lot more, which will reduce firm costs (maybe offices will be built with far less office space and parking spaces) and maybe that will be passed on to the consumer. More people working from home=less driving, commuting and maybe less emissions. Maybe less tax dollars will have to be spent on transportation and more spent on making neighbourhoods walkable, with outdoor amenities, recreation opportunities and beauty on every block. More people working at home could mean neighbourhoods that are more secure, homes like sanctuaries, designed for comfort and work. Who loves their job? Have you ever considered doing something different? I’m going to bet there will a ton of new opportunities coming up. | https://www.poodleforum.com/threads/your-job.274216/ |
In order to adapt to the trends of globalization and regionalization, the Department of International Business Studies is dedicated to produce graduates who are caring, open-minded, internationally competitive, and innovative. In order to provide students with a firm academic and practical foundation, the Department provides a curriculum plan that encompasses core business classes, specialization courses, and practicum experiences.
In order to adapt with the national economic development, the curriculum of the Department of Economics is designed to provide students with knowledge, skills, and values that can foster their understanding of the relationship between economy, theory, and policy. In addition, in order to enhance students’ employability and competitiveness, the Department also places great emphasis on developing students’ global perspectives and providing guidance for classwork and career planning.
The Department of Information Management places great emphasis on instilling social awareness in students. The aim of the Department are threefold. The first aim is to facilitate trade and cultural exchanges between Taiwan and other countries. Secondly, the Department strives to deliver skilled professionals in the field of information management in order to meet the demands of global markets. The third aim is to improve the academic environment and the overall quality of research in central Taiwan.
In order to adapt to the demands of the industry and economic development, the Department of Finance is dedicated to produce graduates with international perspectives who are able to care for the society, to compete in the financial job market, and to think critically and creatively.
The Department of Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality Management places its main focus on nurturing students’ management skills. The Department offers a curriculum which covers more than 40 credit hours of core management classes, as well as a variety of professional electives in tourism, e-commerce, and entrepreneurial management. The Department aims to foster students’ ability to integrate and apply knowledge across different areas of concentration.
EMBA at NCNU upholds and promotes a philosophy of high business management education, combining state enterprise capital management and financial continuing education programs, to establish the “Executive Master of Business Administration”. Through systematic training course, exchange spaces for interaction between industries and team companionship are established, allowing those managers who already have a rich experience to surpass themselves and increase their capacity to respond to complex and diverse corporate environments.
At the University, some departments are very related to each other, therefore, outside of traditional PhD programs, the Ministry of Education wants to encourage every University campus to respond to the needs of industry and society and cultivate multidisciplinary talent. So, under the University Act it established a “Ph.D. course” integrating the resources from those interrelated departments, to create and develop a comprehensive specialized course module. Through this kind of course and degree program design, not only are educational resources integrated and reinforced, but the courses are enabled to adapt to the highly developed social division of labor in the 21st century, and promote the students’ competitive entry into the labor market. | https://cmncnu.webnode.com/departments/ |
How to only do Trial Factoring?
Do i have to adjust settings somewhere if i just want to do trialfactoring? Or should i abbandon when it starts with an LL-test? Also could i adjust the bits uptil where it factors? When i check the status, i see some numbers have been checked for factors up to 72 bits, what is optimal for checking? And how long would it take on a pentium 4 2.4Ghz to trial factor up to 72 bits (regarding you don't find a factor)
-michael
|2003-12-19, 23:54||#2|
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The top side factoring bits are built into the program, so you don't need to change them. If you want to, look into undoc.txt in your prime95 folder. But it is best to leave them as is.
To select trial factoring only, open the prime95 window, go to "Test", click on "PrimeNet" and then check ONLY the "Request Mersenne numbers to Factor".
This sets you up to do trial factoring only.
|2003-12-20, 01:36||#3|
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If your computer is currently doing an LL test, it will continue that to completion unless you unreserve it (using the advanced features of the Prime95 menu).
|2003-12-20, 01:47||#4|
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Belgium
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I don't have advanced options ... yet? How do i get them?
-michael
|2003-12-20, 05:17||#5|
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Go to "Advanced" and you will see "Password", type in 9876 and hit enter. Then go back in and you will see the "Advanced" menu.
Just for fun, how much work have you completed on the LL test?
|2003-12-20, 08:42||#6|
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Belgium
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Done around 4 million iterations, I will complete this test...
I just thought i'd be more productive doing trialfactoring, i guess i need to play a bit with the program, look around for the options and see what suits me best. Just that now it started with the Lucas-Lehmer test it looks like i'm hooked to that for now, can't do anything else...
Also i'm not too sure of the reliability of my hardware. First time i did the torture test it came up with an error, my computer had been running for a few days straight so i rebooted and after that it went through the test smoothly...still i'm not too confident. If i just stick to trialfactoring it's easy to check if sthing goes wrong, to see if something went wrong during an LL test, i can only think of redoing the LL-test completely to figure that one out.
-michael
Last fiddled with by michael on 2003-12-20 at 08:46
|2003-12-20, 10:22||#7|
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"Mark"
Feb 2003
Sydney
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If you're at all doubtful about your hardware, you could do some double-checks. That will give a very good confirmation of how reliably your computer completes LL tests. Your choices for the current assignment would then be: complete it before doing double-checks, do double-checks and later on pick it up where you left off, or abandon it (which seems a waste to me, unless there were errors).
Alternatively, you could get some reassurance by running prime95's torture test for a day, or use memtest86 to check your memory.
Pentium 4s are great for LL tests - first-time or double-checks! (Of course they're also very good at trial factoring above 64 bits, which is where most of the time will be spent anyway.)
Most current trial-factoring assignments will be done to 67 bits. I would guess a 2.4GHz P4 would complete one in 1.5 days. Of course not actually having one myself someone else will probably give a more accurate estimate.
Sorry if there are too many choices here! See what suits you best, as you say.
|2003-12-20, 15:11||#8|
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Borg HQ, Delta Quadrant
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|2003-12-21, 06:01||#9|
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The interesting part is if you trial factor to 70 bits instead of 67. The time involved is about quadrupled.
One of these days I need to take a close look at George's algorithm to eliminate potential factors. He eliminates roughly 19 out of 20 possible factors by 2 simple tests. That still leaves *illions of potential factors (* depends on how big the exponent is)
Fusion
|2003-12-21, 11:39||#10|
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Belgium
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If a prime q is a divisor of Mp it must be q=2kp + 1 and q=+/-1mod8
I don't know of any more eliminations for factors, and i'm pretty sure this is built into the program here.
-michael
|2003-12-25, 03:54||#11|
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Lost in the hills of Iowa
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Above 64bits, each extra "bit" of trial factoring takes twice as long to complete as the bit before it. Up to 64 varies somewhat, due to usage and availability of registers on various CPU types, and other lesser factors.... | https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?s=696d7a8010b758303d6442aa2d126169&t=1753 |
When I was pregnant, my dreams were regular, vivid and scary. I woke in cold sweats, convinced I was being chased by a 10-foot spider, terrorized by a 20-foot shark, and falling off the edge of high buildings with nothing below to save me.
And I know I'm not alone.
Caroline Jones, who is currently expecting her second child, has experienced an increase in the regularity and vividness of her dreams in pregnancy too. In fact, it was one of the first symptoms that made her suspect she was pregnant second time round.
"I've always been a vivid dreamer, but these are different to normal dreams in a couple of ways," she says.
"Firstly, I've had so many sex dreams and, secondly, they are much easier to identify as being a translation of my subconscious thoughts."
Caroline says that she quite often dreams about people and things she's seen that day, or things she has read about on her Facebook feed or in the news. She also says that she sometimes has up to four dreams a night that she can recall. For the most part, the dreams are different every time.
"I think the only reoccurring dream I've had has been about my tooth falling out," she says. "Apparently that dream is quite popular in pregnancy, but I also need a filling so it could be that too!"
Caroline's most memorable dream was one where she watched a snake slither out of its skin in the tree outside her bedroom.
"I can't help but look everyday to see if it's actually there," she says.
Chelsea Thomas, a mum of three, can relate to waking up and feeling unsure if her dreams during pregnancy were a reality or not.
"My dreams were really vivid and I would regularly dream about my eldest daughter, Mollie, misbehaving," she explains. "I would wake up physically angry and have to spend five minutes calming myself down."
"By the end of the pregnancy this was such a regular occurrence that I felt I had to make it up to her – even though she had no idea!"
So what is it about pregnancy that causes us to have these vivid, regular and memorable dreams?
According to Jane Teresa Anderson, a dream analyst and therapist, women tend to be more wakeful and uncomfortable during pregnancy, so are more likely to toss and turn a bit and be more aware of their dreams.
"Being uncomfortable means lying awake trying to get back to sleep, and that's when we begin to think about our dreams, a process that makes it more likely we'll remember them in the morning."
Anderson explains that the reason dreams appear more vivid and emotional during pregnancy is because of the changes the woman is going through, and, again, the fact that they remember them.
"Women are processing their emotions, their beliefs and fears around giving up work or taking maternity leave, changes in the dynamics of their relationships, and becoming a mother (for first timers)."
"We tend to remember our dreams when they're more vivid and emotional. These dreams can also tend to wake us up – in fear, joy, disbelief – and this makes us more likely to remember them in the morning too."
Anderson says that one of the most common dreams women tell her is one in which they are giving birth to an animal or monster.
For women who are having vivid or scary dreams, Anderson offers reassurance that dreams are not what they seem, and strongly advises against ever using a dream dictionary for interpretation.
"Dreams are not literal. They are symbolic. They are about YOU and your fears, emotions, expectations, and beliefs, and it's good to know about these," she advises.
"But, as always, the best thing to do if you are concerned in any way about your pregnancy, is to get a check up or see your doctor or midwife." | http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/pregnancy/stages-of-pregnancy/why-dreams-are-so-vivid-and-weird-in-pregnancy-20150202-134lib |
On July 6, 1985, American astronomer and activist Carl Sagan said, in partnership with NASA administrator James Beggs at the time, that humans would reach Mars in the not-too-distant future.
The statement was made to a crowd of astronomical science enthusiasts and aerospace engineers at an event promoted by the traditional Planetary Society and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) entities. The meeting was captured on video at the time, and was recently rediscovered in the archives of the CNN news network – which published the record on its website CNN Business.
In the video in English, Sagan answers the audience a question about the possibility of taking a man to Mars in the year 2010. At the time, the question was quite pertinent, since the general conception of Mars had just passed from an inhospitable place and desolate for a planet with volcanoes and giant canyons, with great riverbeds. The hope had arisen that with the presence of water, there would be the potential for the planet to harbor life.
Carl Sagan was an American scientist, physicist, biologist, astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, writer, science popularizer and activist.Source: Pxhere
Sagan told those present: “As far as we can tell now, there is no sign of life on Mars, but the planet represents a remarkable opportunity.” He added: “Mars is the planet with the closest environment to Earth in the entire solar system and life is in one and not the other. How is this possible? It is the classic situation of experiment and control,” he said.
Next, James Beggs, administrator of the American space agency NASA at the time, said that someday man would indeed walk on Mars – and for him, the efforts to land on the red planet would already be well advanced “in the first decade of the next century” . Beggs then stated that it would probably be possible for a human being to walk on Mars in 50 years, which, counting from the date of the meeting, would be 2035.
After all, when does man go to Mars?
Most of the technology that can actually take man to Mars is now available, but money is not. Currently, the mission is promoted by members of the planetary society, from the US Congress and also by expert scientists as an international effort – in an attempt to cut costs and promote better relations between Russia and the United States, as both countries have in the past sent unmanned missions to Mars.
At the moment the rover Perseverance, from NASA, is on the red planet, analyzing the ground and taking selfies. The robot landed on Mars on February 18, 2021 and has since sent photos of the planet to Earth. The mission is expected to end in two years, when the samples collected by the rover must come to our planet for analysis.
Mars soil details, in image captured by rover Perseverance.Source: NASA/Reproduction
O rover Chinese Zhurong it also landed on Mars on May 14 this year, and is gathering information on the red planet’s geology, topography, climate and potential water deposits.
But if it depends on the private sector, the first manned mission to Mars could come out faster: SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, intends to take people to the planet as early as 2024, aboard the reusable spacecraft. starship. In 2018, Musk had declared the possible intention to build a base on Mars in the year 2028.
If all goes well, the magnate even intends to populate the planet with 1 million people by 2050. For him, establishing a human presence on Mars will be the way to guarantee the continuity of our species and consciousness beyond our planet. | https://earngurus.com/carl-sagan-predicted-in-1985-when-humans-would-go-to-mars/ |
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Candy Cane Parfaits
Candy Cane Parfaits
0 Review(s)
Cook Minutes
2 Hr 15 Min
Prep : 15 Min
Cook: 2 Hr
Layers of peppermint and strawberry are topped with COOL WHIP and crushed mints in this luscious holiday dessert. It's a sweet treat that's easy enough for a weeknight dessert or a festive gathering.
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6 Servings
Servings
Original recipe yields 6 Servings
serving count
This tool adjusts ingredient amounts only, not method or nutrition information. Additional changes to equipment, baking times, etc. may be needed for recipe success.
1
1-3/4
cups boiling water, divided
2
1
pkg.
(85 g)
Jell-O
Strawberry Jelly Powder
3
1
env. (7 g) unflavoured gelatine
4
1/4
cup
cold water
5
3/4
cup
canned sweetened condensed milk
6
1/4
tsp.
peppermint extract
7
3/4
cup
thawed
Cool Whip
Whipped Topping
8
6
hard peppermint candies, coarsely crushed
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Step 1
Add 1 cup boiling water to strawberry jelly powder in medium bowl; stir 2 min. until completely dissolved. Cool slightly.
Step 2
Meanwhile, sprinkle unflavored gelatine over cold water in separate medium bowl; let stand 1 min. Add remaining boiling water; stir until gelatine is completely dissolved. Stir in milk and extract. Spoon 2 Tbsp. creamy gelatine mixture into each of 6 dessert glasses. Refrigerate 15 min. or until gelatine is set but not firm. Let remaining gelatine mixture stand at room temperature until ready to use.
Step 3
Spoon 1-1/2 Tbsp. strawberry jelly over creamy gelatine layer in each dessert glass. Refrigerate 15 min. or until strawberry jelly layers are set but not firm. Meanwhile, let remaining strawberry jelly stand at room temperature until ready to use.
Step 4
Repeat layers, in alternating colours, to use remaining creamy gelatine and strawberry jelly, refrigerating 15 min. after each strawberry layer. Refrigerate finished parfaits 1 hour or until all layers are firm.
Step 5
Top with
Cool Whip
and crushed candies just before serving.
Kraft Kitchen Tips!
krKitchenTipAndSymbol
Note
For best results, prepare these festive parfaits in straight-sided dessert glasses.
krKitchenTipAndSymbol
Gelatin Success Tip
To make
Jell-O
Jelly that is clear and uniformly set, be sure the jelly powder is completely dissolved in the boiling water. Stirring with a rubber spatula will help to completely dissolve the jelly powder.
NutritionTitleCont_Left-Bracket
Nutrition
NutritionTitleCont_Right-Bracket
Calories
220
Calories From Fat
0
% Daily Value
Fat
5 g
Saturated fat
4 g
20 %
Cholesterol
10 mg
Sodium
100 mg
4 %
Carbohydrate
40 g
Fibre
0 g
Sugars
39 g
Protein
5 g
Vitamin A
2 %
Vitamin C
0 %
Calcium
10 %
Iron
0 %
Servings
6 servings, 1 parfait each
Nutrition information is estimated based on the ingredients and cooking instructions as described in each recipe and is intended to be used for informational purposes only. Please note that nutrition details may vary based on methods of preparation, origin and freshness of ingredients used.
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Have you tried? | https://www.kraftwhatscooking.ca/recipe/candy-cane-parfaits-210863 |
Due to the limited radio spectrum available for wireless communications, and the need to conserve battery power within mobile stations (MSs), such as cellular phones and terminals, certain networks have implemented a discontinuous reception (DRX) or “slotted mode” protocol. A mobile station in the slotted mode monitors a paging channel of the network at only predetermined times, or slots, within a slot cycle. At all other times in the slot cycle, the mobile station need not monitor the paging channel. This allows the mobile station to operate in a reduced power consumption mode and prolong standby time for a given battery charge.
The network tracks slot times for each mobile station within each geographically based network cell. When a phone call, for example, is routed through the network to a recipient MS, a base station(s) (BS) associated with the appropriate cell(s) transmits a ‘page’ over the paging channel to the recipient MS. Because both the network and the mobile station know which slot the mobile station will be monitoring, the network sends the ‘page’ at a time coincident with or overlapping the monitored slot, rather than continuously over the paging channel. The paging channel is typically a uni-directional downlink (BS to MS) channel. The mobile station uses a different channel (typically a uni-directional uplink channel called Access channel) that does not operate on the slot times of the paging channel to request a dedicated traffic channel for the pending phone call.
In CDMA IS95 or IS2000 versions A, B, and C, the slot cycle is divided into 16 slots of 80 milliseconds each, numbered 0–15. The basic slot cycle time is 1.28 seconds (16 slots at 80 milliseconds each). The frequency of slots monitored by the mobile station may vary according to demands on the network at any given time, such that the current slot cycle time T=1.28×2i seconds, wherein i is an integer 0, 1, 2, etc., known as the slot cycle index. Thus for a slot cycle index i=0, the slot cycle time T is the basic slot cycle, 1.28 seconds, and each mobile station must monitor one slot per each basic cycle. For a slot cycle index i=2 the slot cycle time T is expanded to 5.12 seconds, and each mobile station must monitor only one slot for each 4 basic slot cycles. Typically, the network transmits a maximum slot cycle index that it will support at a particular cell, and each mobile station operates on its maximum slot cycle index consistent with that broadcast maximum (e.g., if a network/cell transmits maximum i=2, an MS that support i≦4 will operate within that network/cell at i=2; if the network/cell transmits maximum i=2, an MS that support i≦1 will operate within that network/cell at i=1).
Mobile stations may employ one of at least two architectures for ‘waking up’ the MS when originating a call. As used herein, the mobile station is in a ‘sleep’ mode when it is powered on but at a power consumption rate that maximizes standby time. The MS is in an ‘awakened’ mode when additional circuitry is powered as compared to the sleep mode (e.g., the MS is monitoring the paging channel). One approach ‘wakes’ the mobile station every 1.28 seconds regardless of slot cycle index (though wakeups between designated slots for i>0 are of a shorter duration). This approach is referred to herein as the fixed interval system.
An alternate approach is to only ‘wake’ the mobile station at the designated paging slot that the network requires the mobile station to monitor, hereinafter, a true index system. Because the true index system wakes the mobile station less often and for less total time, it consumes approximately 10% less power than the fixed interval system at a slot cycle index i=2. Power conservation remains an important consideration in most aspects of mobile station design and operation.
The mobile station must monitor the paging channel only during the slots designated by the network, and the network architecture or protocol does not tie call origination from the mobile station to its assigned slot. Nevertheless, some, if not all, mobile station architectures prevent the mobile station from transmitting a call setup or channel access request to the network until the mobile station wakes up according to its slot schedule. The greatest time lag occurs when the user presses the ‘talk’ or ‘send’ button immediately after the mobile station goes into sleep mode. For the fixed interval approach, this is a delay of 1.28 seconds regardless of slot time index. However, for the true index approach, there is a 5.12 second delay (minus 80 milliseconds) at index i=2, a wait sufficiently long so has to be noticeable by the user.
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Opacity limited fragmentation is considered for a spherically-collapsing isothermal molecular cloud in a low temperature range where molecular hydrogen and grains are the only cooling and opacity sources. The minimum Jeans mass of a fragment is calculated for different values of the parameters. The form of the initial mass function (IMF) is derived for low-mass protostellar fragments for different values of the parameters. They are discussed and compared with observations. A rough estimate of the cloud mass contained in the brown-dwarf regime is given.
- Publication:
-
Astrophysics and Space Science
- Pub Date:
- July 1992
- DOI:
- 10.1007/BF01070197
- Bibcode:
- 1992Ap&SS.193...17K
- Keywords: | https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992Ap%26SS.193...17K/abstract |
Hilde Proscholdt Mangold was a doctoral student at the Zoological Institute at the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany, from 1920-1923. Mangold conducted research for her dissertation 'On the Induction of Embryonic Primordia by Implantation of Organizers from Different Species' ('Ueber Induktion von Embryonanlagen durch Implantation artfremder Organisatoren'), under the guidance of Hans Spemann, a professor of zoology at the University of Freiburg.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments, Publications
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer in Mammals (1938-2013)
In the second half of the
twentieth century, scientists learned how to clone organisms in some
species of mammals. Scientists have applied somatic cell nuclear transfer to clone human and
mammalian embryos as a means to produce stem cells for laboratory
and medical use. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a technology applied in cloning, stem cell
research and regenerative medicine. Somatic cells are cells that
have gone through the differentiation process and are not germ
cells. Somatic cells donate their nuclei, which scientists
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories, Technologies, Processes
Edmund Beecher Wilson (1856-1939)
Edmund Beecher Wilson contributed to cell biology, the study of cells, in the US during the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. His three editions of The Cell in Development and Inheritance (or Heredity) in 1896, 1900, and 1925 introduced generations of students to cell biology. In The Cell, Wilson described the evidence and theories of his time about cells and identified topics for future study. He helped show how each part of the cell works during cell division and in every step of early development of an organism.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Intraspecies Chimeras Produced in Laboratory Settings (1960-1975)
When cells-but not DNA-from two or more genetically distinct individuals combine to form a new individual, the result is called a chimera. Though chimeras occasionally occur in nature, scientists have produced chimeras in a laboratory setting since the 1960s. During the creation of a chimera, the DNA molecules do not exchange genetic material (recombine), unlike in sexual reproduction or in hybrid organisms, which result from genetic material exchanged between two different species. A chimera instead contains discrete cell populations with two unique sets of parental genes.
Format: Articles
Robert Lanza (1956- )
During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Robert Paul Lanza studied embryonic stem cells, tissues,
and endangered species as chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell
Technology, Incorporated in Worcester, Massachusetts. Lanza's team cloned
the endangered species of gaur Bos gaurus.
Although the gaur did not survive long, Lanza successfully cloned
another cow-like creature, called the banteng
(Bos
javanicus). Lanza also worked on cloning human embryos
to harvest stem cells, which could be used to treat dieases. While
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Embryonic Differentiation in Animals
Embryonic differentiation is the process of development during which embryonic cells specialize and diverse tissue structures arise. Animals are made up of many different cell types, each with specific functions in the body. However, during early embryonic development, the embryo does not yet possess these varied cells; this is where embryonic differentiation comes into play. The differentiation of cells during embryogenesis is the key to cell, tissue, organ, and organism identity.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
Elizabeth Dexter Hay (1927–2007)
Elizabeth Dexter Hay studied the cellular processes that affect development of embryos in the US during the mid-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In 1974, Hay showed that the extracellular matrix, a collection of structural molecules that surround cells, influences cell behavior. Cell growth, cell migration, and gene expression are influenced by the interaction between cells and their extracellular matrix.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Spemann-Mangold Organizer
The Spemann-Mangold organizer, also known as the Spemann organizer, is a cluster of cells in the developing embryo of an amphibian that induces development of the central nervous system. Hilde Mangold was a PhD candidate who conducted the organizer experiment in 1921 under the direction of her graduate advisor, Hans Spemann, at the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, German. The discovery of the Spemann-Mangold organizer introduced the concept of induction in embryonic development.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
Apoptosis in Embryonic Development
Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a mechanism in embryonic development that occurs naturally in organisms. Apoptosis is a different process from cell necrosis, which is uncontrolled cell death usually after infection or specific trauma. As cells rapidly proliferate during development, some of them undergo apoptosis, which is necessary for many stages in development, including neural development, reduction in egg cells (oocytes) at birth, as well as the shaping of fingers and vestigial organs in humans and other animals. Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz, and John E.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories
"Experiments on Embryonic Induction III. A Note on Inductions by Chick Primitive Streak Transplanted to the Rabbit Embryo" (1934), by Conrad Hal Waddington
Conrad Hal Waddington's "Experiments on Embryonic Induction III," published in 1934 in the Journal of Experimental Biology, describes the discovery that the primitive streak induces the mammalian embryo. Waddington's hypothesis was that a transplanted primitive streak could induce neural tissue in the ectoderm of the rabbit embryo. The primitive streak defines the axis of an embryo and is capable of inducing the differentiation of various tissues in a developing embryo during gastrulation.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
“Annual Research Review: Prenatal Stress and the Origins of Psychopathology: An Evolutionary Perspective” (2011), by Vivette Glover
In 2011, fetal researcher Vivette Glover published “Annual Research Review: Prenatal Stress and the Origins of Psychopathology: An Evolutionary Perspective,” hereafter, “Prenatal Stress and the Origins of Psychopathology,” in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. In that article, Glover explained how an evolutionary perspective may be useful in understanding the effects of fetal programming. Fetal programming is a hypothesis that attempts to explain how factors during pregnancy can affect fetuses after birth.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories, Reproduction, Disorders
Embryonic Sex Differentiation and Sex Hormones (1947), by Carl R. Moore
In 1947, Carl Richard Moore, a researcher at the University of Chicago, in Chicago, Illinois, wrote Embryonic Sex Differentiation and Sex Hormones, which was published in the same year as a first-edition monograph. In the book, Moore argues that regulation of sex differentiation in mammals is not controlled by sex hormones secreted by embryonic sex organs (gonads), but is controlled by non-hormonal genetic factors.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Experiments
Assisted Human Reproduction Act (2004)
The Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHR Act) is a piece of federal legislation passed by the Parliament of Canada. The Act came into force on 29 March 2004. Many sections of the Act were struck down following a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on its constitutionality. The AHR Act sets a legislative and regulatory framework for the use of reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization and related services including surrogacy and gamete donation. The Act also regulates research in Canada involving in vitro embryos.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal, Reproduction, Ethics
Julia Barlow Platt's Embryological Observations on Salamanders' Cartilage (1893)
In 1893, Julia Barlow Platt published her research on the origins of cartilage in the developing head of the common mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus) embryo. The mudpuppy is an aquatic salamander commonly used by embryologists because its large embryonic cells and nuclei are easy to see. Platt followed the paths of cells in developing mudpuppy embryos to see how embryonic cells migrated during the formation of the head. With her research, Platt challenged then current theories about germ layers, the types of cells in an early embryo that develop into adult cells.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments, Theories, Processes
Chemical Induction
Research in chemical induction seeks to identify the compound or compounds responsible for differentiation in a developing embryo. Soren Lovtrup compared the search for these compounds to the search for the philosopher's stone. It was based on the assumption that the differentiating agents have to be chemical substances either within cells or in the extracellular matrix.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
"The Cell-Theory" (1853), by Thomas Henry Huxley
The Cell-Theory was written by Thomas Henry Huxley in Britain and published in 1853 by The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. The twenty-two page article reviews twelve works on cell theory, including those in Germany by Caspar Friedrich Wolff in the eighteenth century and by Karl Ernst von Baer in the nineteenth century. Huxley spends much of The Cell-Theory on a cell theory proposed in the late 1830s by Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann in Germany.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Hilde Mangold (1898-1924)
Hilde Mangold, previously Hilde Proescholdt, was a German embryologist and physiologist who became well known for research completed with Hans Spemann in the 1920s. As a graduate student, Mangold assisted Spemann and together they discovered and coined the term the "organizer." The organizer discovery was a crucial contribution to embryology that led to further understanding of the pattern of embryo differentiation of amphibians.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Organisers and Genes (1940), by Conrad Hal Waddington
Conrad Hal Waddington's Organisers and Genes, published in 1940, is a summary of available research and theoretical framework for many concepts related to tissue differentiation in the developing embryo. The book is composed of two main conceptual sections. The first section explores the action and nature of the organizer, while the second section delves into genes and their influence on development.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
The inductive capacity of oral mesenchyme and its role in tooth development (1969-1970), by Edward J. Kollar and Grace R. Baird
Between February 1969 and August 1970 Edward Kollar and Grace Baird, from the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, published three papers that established the role of the mesenchyme in tooth induction. Drawing upon a history of using tissue interactions to understand differentiation, Kollar and Baird designed their experiments to understand how differentiated structures become specified. Their work overturned a widely accepted model that epithelium controls the identity of the structure, a phenomenon called structural specificity.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
Otto Mangold (1891-1962)
Otto Mangold was an early twentieth century embryologist who specialized in the development of amphibian embryos. A major emphasis of his research was refining the concept of the organizer, now referred to as embryonic induction. He was born on 4 November 1891 in Auenstein, Germany, and came from what Viktor Hamburger, a colleague and personal acquaintance, described as "peasant stock." Mangold attended several universities including Tübingen, Freiburg, and Rostock.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Mesenchyme
Mesenchyme is a type of animal tissue comprised of loose cells embedded in a mesh of proteins and fluid, called the extracellular matrix. The loose, fluid nature of mesenchyme allows its cells to migrate easily and play a crucial role in the origin and development of morphological structures during the embryonic and fetal stages of animal life. Mesenchyme directly gives rise to most of the body's connective tissues, from bones and cartilage to the lymphatic and circulatory systems.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
Johannes Holtfreter (1901-1992)
Johannes Holtfreter made important discoveries about the properties of the organizer discovered by Hans Spemann. Although he spent much time away from the lab over many years, he was a productive researcher. His colleagues noted that the time he spent away helped revitalize his ideas. He is credited with the development of a balanced salt medium to allow embryos to develop; the discovery that dead organizer tissue retains inductive abilities; and the development of specification, competence, and distribution of fate maps in the developing frog embryo.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Telomerase in Human Development
Telomerase is an enzyme that regulates the lengths of telomeres in the cells of many organisms, and in humans it begins to function int the early stages of embryonic development. Telomeres are repetitive sequences of DNA on the ends of chromosomes that protect chromosomes from sticking to each other or tangling. In 1989, Gregg Morin found that telomerase was present in human cells. In 1996, Woodring Wright and his team examined human embryonic cells and found that telomerase was active in them. Scientists manipulate telomerase in cells to give cells the capacity to replicate infinitely.
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Aristotle studied developing organisms, among other things, in ancient Greece, and his writings shaped Western philosophy and natural science for greater than two thousand years. He spent much of his life in Greece and studied with Plato at Plato's Academy in Athens, where he later established his own school called the Lyceum. Aristotle wrote greater than 150 treatises on subjects ranging from aesthetics, politics, ethics, and natural philosophy, which include physics and biology. Less than fifty of Aristotle's treatises persisted into the twenty-first century.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Process of Eukaryotic Embryonic Development
All sexually reproducing, multicellular diploid eukaryotes begin life as embryos. Understanding the stages of embryonic development is vital to explaining how eukaryotes form and how they are related on the tree of life. This understanding can also help answer questions related to morphology, ethics, medicine, and other pertinent fields of study. In particular, the field of comparative embryology is concerned with documenting the stages of ontogeny. | https://embryo.asu.edu/search?text=embryonic%20stem%20cell%20research&%3Bamp%3Bf%5B0%5D=dc_subject_embryo%3A92&%3Bamp%3Bpage=2&%3Bf%5B0%5D=dc_description_type%3A30&f%5B0%5D=dc_description_type%3A35&page=2 |
What if Math Labs are spreadsheet-based single-concept lessons. Each is designed to use functions and to develop functional thinking. In the STEM tradition they approach math as an experimental science.
Absolute Value Functions
The absolute value (ABS) function is the positive value of a number or quantity. Its graph has a very peculiar shape, a V. Since absolute… Continue
Absolute Value Polynomials
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Adding
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Adding Machine
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Addition Patterns
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Addition Table
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Addressing
We have been using cell addresses informally until now, but now we can be more formal and explicit. Different spreadsheets have different types of address… Continue
Air Pollution
This chart recently came out from the American Lung Association about air pollution in the United States. How would you present this data to Congress… Continue
Associativity
Parentheses are not only important in paper math, they are critical in spreadsheets. To make sure that terms are handled properly by spreadsheets, we have… Continue
Battleship
Spreadsheets can be a great place for you to build your own games. Ryan has built one of his early favorites, Battleship, where you learn… Continue
Birthday
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Build a House
Spreadsheets with their natural grid make a great, though not entirely flexible, platform for architectural design and for working with shapes. Build a house introduces… Continue
Build a Times Table
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CO2 Growth
Spreadsheets offer us a nearly unlimited ability to develop and learn from case studies using real world data. We will focus mainly on climate change… Continue
Coffee Money
Are you a coffee drinker? Small daily expenses like coffee can quickly add up. By using spreadsheets to organize cost, you can monitor how much… Continue
Coin Problems
Suppose Briley has 10 coins in quarters and dimes and has a total of $1.45. How many of each coin does she have? Continue
Common Denominators
We can use these proportions to compare two ratios with different denominators by finding a denominator that their proportions have in common. Thus the common… Continue
Commutativity
The symmetry of the multiplication table around the square numbers diagonal we call commutativity or the commutative property. It means that in a 12 by… Continue
Composition of Functions
One of the most powerful aspects of the mathematics of functions is our ability to treat them as abstract quantities (essentially numbers) and then combine… Continue
Counting By
Counting-By introduces multiplication. Counting-by or skip-counting is, we believe, the best way to help students build their multiplication facts, and though they will live in… Continue
Credit Cards
How much are your credit cards costing you? If you are like most of us, they are very expensive because we have credit card debt.… Continue
Decimal Addition
Decimal addition is one of a series of Labs to help you understand and learn to use decimals. I think you will find it fun… Continue
Decimal Division
Decimal Division is one of a series of Labs to help you understand and learn to use decimals. I think you will find it fun… Continue
Decimal Multiplication
Decimal Multiplication is one of a series of Labs to help you understand and learn to use decimals. I think you will find it fun… Continue
Decimal Subtraction
Decimal subtraction is one of a series of Labs to help you understand and learn to use decimals. I think you will find it fun… Continue
Decimals and Percents
Ratios can be written in a wide variety of different way: as fractions, as decimals, and as percents.,with a colon, with a slash, as a… Continue
Distributivity
The distributive property turns out to be central to a surprising variety of important mathematics. One of the most valuable is to use it to… Continue
Division and Ratio
We can make a division table just like we made a multiplication table. Division is surprisingly our most important operation in terms of most of… Continue
Drawing Triangles
Though spreadsheets lets you put geometric shapes on the screen, those shapes are not connected with the cells and cannot be changed by using different… Continue
Enigma Machine
Spreadsheets are great for creating secret codes and for breaking them. During World War II the German military used a machine they called Enigma to… Continue
Equivalent Fractions
Fractions are ratios that’s why we call them rational numbers (ratio numbers). If you think about fractions as ratios, how does this help you to… Continue
Exploring Triangles
Create, manipulate, and explore triangles in this live interactive spreadsheet. On the surface, a triangle is being drawn on a graph, but the real magic… Continue
Exponential Functions
What if you created a function where the exponent is a variable? As you might expect, this would be called an exponential function. When you… Continue
Factor Pairs
Multiplying creates products, factoring separates a product into the numbers that make it up. We thus start with the table and then look at the… Continue
Factor Table
Spreadsheets always automatically perform the operations you ask them to do. But sometimes we want to see the process. We can make spreadsheets show us… Continue
Fibonacci’s Sequence
Fibonacci, the nickname given the great medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, is connected in most of our minds with the Fibonacci sequence. Spreadsheets make wonderful… Continue
Gas Money
If you commute to work or school, you understand how expensive driving can be. Choose a car in this interactive spreadsheet as it breaks down… Continue
GDP
The GDP or Gross Domestic Product of a country is one measure of its wealth. What can this data tell us about the U.S. economy?… Continue
Graphing
Graphs as we know them were first invented by Galileo. They are powerful images of functions. I will introduce you to graphs by letting you… Continue
Hindu Algebra Problem
This problem is typical of the earliest algebra problems that likely came out of India. It is interesting historically, and it is the kind of… Continue
Hit Streak
In 1941, Joe DiMaggio got a hit in 56 straight games. This record has never been beaten. Some say it is the greatest record in… Continue
How Many Times
How many of the numbers from 1 to 100 are in the times table? All, Most, Less than half? I think you will find in… Continue
Hundreds Table Patterns
We introduce students to more complex patterns and rules in hundreds tables. In particular, we have students look at diagonal patterns and develop rules to… Continue
Introducing Spreadsheets
In introducing Spreadsheets we want you to learn to build a numberline by using a rule (a formula). We begin with a simple rule that you can copy… Continue
Introducing Subtraction
What if you built a rule that would enable you to count backwards? How would it be the opposite of addition? What would happen if… Continue
Inverse of a Function
Spreadsheets make it very easy to switch axes and add graphs. They enable students to play with what may have been difficult and abstract concepts… Continue
Inverse of Linear Functions
What does a linear function look like when we interchange the inputs and outputs, that is make the x-axis the y-axis and vice versa. Continue
Inverse Variation
The variables in most of the functions we are used to working with vary directly, as one goes up the other goes up. What do… Continue
Lease or Buy
If you are in the market for a new car, you often have a decision to make. Do you want to buy the car or… Continue
Lemonade Stand
Manage a business. The Lemonade Stand has been a business simulation developed in many different versions. We believe this is the first time that it has… Continue
Lights Out
This is one of those math puzzles that come up in contests but which turn out to be quite interesting mathematically. Imagine a long hallway… Continue
Linear Functions
Linear functions are the most important family of functions. They pervade our everyday lives and our work. Their graph is a line, and their general… Continue
Lissajous Figures
We often see Lissajous figures in old sci-fi movies because they are so cool. As you play with them I think you will find them… Continue
Magic Number (Infinite Series)
What if you made a series of unit fractions with the odd numbers as their denominator, added the first two together, subtracted the next one,… Continue
Magic Rectangle
Multiplication tables have some wonderful and quite surprising patterns. This is one of them. Draw any rectangle in a multiplication table and you will find… Continue
Make a Hundreds Table
This is the graduation exercise for the basic use of spreadsheets. We combine rules and addressing to have students build their own hundreds table in… Continue
Making Fractions
Spreadsheet math generally focuses on ratio and proportion to develop the concept of fraction. But fractions is such a big problem in today’s curriculum that… Continue
Margin vs Markup
How should you figure out your profit? If you have an item that you are selling, should you price it at 25% over its cost… Continue
Mixture Problems
How many gallons of a 70% alcohol solution must be added to 30 gallons of a 10% alcohol solution in order to produce a new… Continue
Moore’s Law
It was one of the most amazing visions of the future ever made. In 1965 Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, proposed a… Continue
More Number Lines
We use rules to build new numberlines. For example we can start in the middle and go both forward or backward using adding and subtracting rules. You can even… Continue
Motion Problems
George is in New York and Martha is in Washington. They leave at the same time and follow the same road to meet each other… Continue
Multiplying Integers
We have made a big deal of the times table and of other tables.Now we extend the times table to negative numbers and thus to… Continue
Napoleon’s Pyramid
When Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1798 he went to the Great Pyramid of Giza. While his men climbed to its peak, he figured out that… Continue
Normal Distribution
Most museums with math exhibits have a Pascal’s triangle made up of pegs with balls falling down between them and bouncing off of them. One… Continue
Number Lines
Number Lines introduce students to functional thinking and the use of formulas in spreadsheets. For younger students we call these formulas “rules” and ask students… Continue
Number Patterns
Use numberlines and spreadsheet rules to explore the amazing patterns we find in our whole numbers. Did you know that you can get the odd… Continue
Number Series
Spreadsheets make it easy for us to explore patterns in the whole numbers. This Lab does that and helps you learn the basics of spreadsheets… Continue
Odd Times
How many of the products in a 12 by 12 times table are odd numbers? This is a question we rarely ask in paper-based math… Continue
Parametric Equations
Parametric equations are powerful tools to model projectile motions and to graph things that are not functions like circle or ellipses. The x and y… Continue
Parentheses and Pi
Parentheses are very important in spreadsheets because like all programming, spreadsheet formulas have to be very specific. A big formula, especially one like Viete’s approximation… Continue
Pascal’s Triangle
Another famous pattern, Pascal’s triangle, is easy to construct and explore on spreadsheets. Create a formula for any cell that adds the two cells in… Continue
Pennies to Heaven
Pennies to Heaven is a Fermi Problem, basically a “headmath” experiment. Fermi Problems, originally developed by Enrico Fermi, one of the greatest experimental and theoretical… Continue
Personal Budget
How much money do you spend? How much money can you save? We all need to know these things, but you can’t know them until… Continue
Peter’s Taxi
There are a wide variety of financial literacy problems. This is the kind of problem that appears on many tests. It does not ask you… Continue
Place Value
Our number system inherited from India and from the Medieval Arab world enables us to use just 10 symbols to write any number we can… Continue
Place Value: Decimals
We take our place value generator to decimals to help students see the simplicity of the place value pattern going right as well as left. Continue
Place Value: Thousands
We extend the place value generator to 100’s of thousands to show you how the pattern of 1’s, 10’s, 100’s, continues to 1,000’s, 10,000’s, 100,000’s.… Continue
Polynomial Functions
Polynomial functions are not limited to the highest term and while that term is most important in determining the shape of its graph, additional terms… Continue
Power Functions
Adding an exponent, sometimes referred to as a ‘power’, to the input variable of a linear function that passes through the origin creates a power… Continue
Powerball
You just won the Lottery worth $600,000,000. You have a choice between taking it as a lump sum of $376.9 million or in yearly payments… Continue
Powers of Ten
Picturing exponential growth, powers of 10, can be hard for any of us to imagine. The spreadsheet has the flexibility to enable us to explore the powers… Continue
Prime Numbers
The prime numbers are among the most fascinating objects in all of mathematics. While we can generate them, we do not know or understand their… Continue
Probability: Flipping a Coin
That probability is multiplicative is not an easy concept for many of us. Using the spreadsheet with our ability to make tables and to cut… Continue
Products as Areas
Using the times table, students can see that products are always rectangles, and that they represent the area of that rectangle. They should explore the… Continue
Projectile Motion
Let’s do a little target practice with this spreadsheet projectile simulator, which will map out the flight path of an arrow shooting toward a target. Continue
Quadratic Functions
What does each of the coefficients do? How does it change the graph of the parabola. What does a do, what does c do and… Continue
Rate of Growth
We look at world population over the past 60+ years and ask whether the earth’s population is growing faster or slower today. Is it out… Continue
Ratio and Proportion
We think about ratio tables in terms of motion. Move up 2 and over 1, or move up 1 and over 2. In this way… Continue
Rows and Columns
We use the hundreds table to introduce rows and columns and focus students on seeing the patterns in these tables. Again and again we go… Continue
Rule of 72
The rule of 72 is an old banker’s rule of thumb to find out how long it will take to double your money at different… Continue
Shapes
Shapes introduces student to changing the colors in cells and to changing the shapes of cells by dragging the column or row separators in the… Continue
Sierpinski Fractals
Fractals are a new 21st century mathematics. They are patterns that repeat themselves at various scales. This one is based on the odd numbers in… Continue
Similar Triangles
Scatterplot graphs enable us to build shapes using spreadsheets and to practice transformational geometry. They are surprisingly flexible tools. And since they depend upon a… Continue
Sine Function
Spreadsheets are not limited to algebraic functions, they can also display trigonometric functions. We are modeling the sine function, but you can try any of… Continue
Solar System
When I was young I loved to play with planetary data, to explore their patterns, to learn more about astronomy, and to deal with large… Continue
Solving Equations
Typical algebra courses start with equations and solving equations and then move to graphing and functions. We start with functions and use them to solve… Continue
Solving Equations Digitally
This Lab introduces a method for solving or estimating the solution to an equation digitally that can be applied to many types of equations. This… Continue
Square Numbers
The square numbers form an interesting pattern on the times (multiplication) table. They run along a diagonal from 1 to the top right of the… Continue
String Challenge
Strings need not begin and end on axes that are at right angles to each other which we call Cartesian. It is quite interesting that… Continue
String Diagrams
The usual way to make string diagrams using rubber bands or yarn on a board with nails does not allow much exploration. Mary Boole meant… Continue
Subtraction Tables
What would a subtraction table look like? How would its pattern be different from an addition or multiplication table? Is subtraction commutative? Continue
Sudoku Challenge
Have you ever played Sudoku? It is fun and challenging. You have to find the numbers from 1 to 9 in each cell so that… Continue
Syracuse Problem
I built a Lab for you to play with the Syracuse Problem and to learn to use spreadsheets to play with like problems in fun… Continue
Systems of Equations
Solving systems of equations sometimes called simultaneous equations with graphs is simply a matter of finding out where they intersect. One of the most valuable… Continue
The Chessboard
We take that great old problem of the inventor of chess and the ruler of India and use it to see how powers of 2… Continue
Triangular Numbers
1, 3, 6, 10… are called the triangular numbers because they can be stacked up to form a triangle. They are very interesting numbers, and… Continue
What is x? | https://whatifmath.org/lab-gallery-2/ |
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